Midweek Notes from a Practicing Writer

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

Rejections, Redux
Remember the new poem I mentioned last week? Well, it continued to glean rejections this week. (I’m mildly irked by one editor’s feedback, but I’ll be discreet and let that go un-amplified for the moment.)

I’ve been tweaking the piece and am still holding out hope for it. And if the one publication I’ve yet to hear back from right now also says “no,” that’s okay, because I think that after that, I’ll bite the bullet and send it somewhere that doesn’t take simultaneous submissions. (That’s something I normally hate to do, but every so often, I’ll yield.)

Jewish Lit at the Museum of Jewish Heritage
Last Wednesday evening, I had the pleasure of attending a public forum featuring the 2015 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature authors at the Museum of Jewish Heritage here in New York. 2015 Sami Rohr Prize Winner Ayelet Tsabari, Choice Award recipient Kenneth Bonert, and finalists Yelena Akhtiorskaya, Molly Antopol, and Boris Fishman all participated in a discussion moderated by Austin Ratner. (I was not present at the following evening’s award ceremony/reception, but luckily, Ayelet Tsabari’s acceptance speech can be viewed on YouTube.)

My Creative Cousin
Finally, I’d like to honor some special songwriting that I encountered this week. (more…)

Pre-Shabbat Jewish Lit Links

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen
Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen

Every Friday My Machberet presents an array of Jewish-interest links, primarily of the literary variety.

  • Job alert: Jew in the City is hiring an Editor/Manager of Marketing and Operations.
  • Lovely Forward essay by Joshua Braff on his road to becoming a writer — and his Jewish grandmother’s reactions along the way.
  • In The Jewish Week, Sandee Brawarsky explores the “growing literary genre of ex-Orthodox testing traditional narrative of insular communities.”
  • The New Jersey Jewish News recaps April’s “Frames: Jewish Culture and the Comic Book,” a two-day conference at Princeton University.
  • Next week brings the official publication of Jonathan Papernick’s The Book of Stone (Fig Tree Books). As a member of the FTB team, I was happy to see that this week brought a highly enthusiastic (and highly comprehensive) review on the Jewish Book Council’s website.

    • Shabbat Shalom!