Midweek Notes from a Practicing Writer

by Erika Dreifus on
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A Fab Week for Fig Tree

One of this week’s projects for me in my job at Fig Tree Books is preparing the February newsletter. (If you’re not yet subscribing to the Fig Tree newsletter, you can remedy that right over here!) A couple of issues, back, I established a new “column” for the newsletter that I’ve dubbed the “Kvell Korner.” It’s a spot where we can share especially good news/press/honors about our authors, books, and company.
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This past week provided some excellent material to be “kornered.” First, from the Jewish press came Sandee Brawarsky’s spring books preview article for The Jewish Week, which opens as follows: “While there’s frequent news these days of bookstores closing and publishers downsizing, the really good news is that two new publishers interested in Jewish literature are introducing their first titles this season.” Yes, Fig Tree Books is one of them! You can find the full article, which also touts two of our forthcoming novels, The Book of Stone and Safekeeping, online. (more…)

Sunday Sentence

by Erika Dreifus on
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In which I participate in David Abrams’s “Sunday Sentence” project, sharing the best sentence I’ve read during the past week, “out of context and without commentary.”

Afterward, a mute shower, his second of the day, while the chatter that had clung to him drained into the hospital’s sewer.

Source: Edith Pearlman, “Castle 4,” in Honeydew: Stories

Pre-Shabbat Jewish Literary Links

by Erika Dreifus on
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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.

  • The Jewish Week‘s Gary Rosenblatt shares observations on “Jewish America” as gleaned through the prism of his cross-country book tour.
  • I greatly admired Gail Hareven’s The Confessions of Noa Weber (trans. Dalya Bilu); Adam Kirsch’s review of Hareven’s newly translated Lies, First Person, has me eager to read more.
  • Earlier this week, The Whole Megillah’s Barbara Krasner was kind enough to post an interview with me.
  • The March/April 2015 issue of Poets & Writers spotlights Fig Tree Books, the Jewish fiction-focused publishing company where I work.
  • And Fig Tree also receives some generous attention in The Jewish Week‘s spring books preview.

    • Shabbat shalom!