The Greatness of Goldblog

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

I know, it’s been awhile since I’ve sung the praises of Jeffrey Goldberg here. My bad. Mr. Goldberg’s posts in the wake of the publication of Peter Beinart’s much-talked about New York Review of Books essay, however, are especially worth reading. Here’s the latest one, as of this writing, but I strongly encourage you to read back through the blog. (I’ll help you out: look here, here, here, and here.)

I do heart Jeffrey Goldberg. He so often expresses, so eloquently, what I am struggling to put together in words. Thank you, the guru behind Goldblog, for the important work that you do.

Thursday’s Pre-Publication Post: The Week in Review

by Erika Dreifus on
4

First, THANK YOU all for the amazing response to last week’s post, in which I solicited your feedback on author photo possibilities. You’re a terrific group!

I’ve now gone ahead and asked the photographer to retouch two photos (as I said, one retouched photo is part of the package I signed up for; I’m going to kick in the extra bucks for a second one). In the meantime, I want to share with you a useful post on author photos that I found. I’ve sent it along to the photographer, too, to explain my request for images with different resolutions.

Other pre-publication activities this past week have included going through a copy-edited version of my manuscript (and if you’re wondering about the use of the hyphen with “copy-edited,” you have a sense of some dilemmas I’ve been facing). I’ve also been following up with the Big Publishing House from which I have been awaiting a permissions response. Important (relearned) lesson here: Sometimes, you really have to pick up the phone. And progress toward a cover design, about which I’ve heretofore said little, continues.

So, that’s what’s been happening with Quiet Americans this week. Thank you all so much, again, for your interest!

Hebrew Lessons Online

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

Via H-Net.org

“Hebrew Lessons Online is a recently launched website with resources for learning Hebrew. The Web site is at http://hebrewlessonsonline.com. The site has an on-line Hebrew Level test to determine your level and get personalized self-study recommendations.

The site has links to on-line dictionaries and recommendations, a newsletter focused on Jewish holidays, and coming soon an online HebrewPedia — a visual dictionary.

This new website is a great resource for anyone interested in learning or teaching Hebrew. Please forward this announcement to anyone who might be interested.

Haven’t tried it yet myself, but it looks interesting.

An Evening at "Collected Stories"

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

Last week I had the good fortune of making a visit to Broadway, where I saw a revival of “Collected Stories,” a play by Donald Margulies.

As The Jewish Week noted a couple of days after I saw the show:

“In the play, an older Jewish writer named Ruth Stein, expertly played by Lavin, becomes a mentor and maternal figure for a non-Jewish student of hers named Lisa Peterson. The mood of the play is set from the beginning, with Santo Loquasto’s impressive set of book-lined walls, window seats, rugs and lamps. Upon her first visit, Lisa is impressed by the ‘real furniture and real books’ in Ruth’s elegant Greenwich Village apartment, which Lisa contrasts to her own ‘makeshift’ apartment, which she laments is ‘sad, completely lacking in dignity.'”

I tried to snap a photo of the set before the show began. The photo doesn’t do justice to the set, which is indeed impressive.If you have the ability to catch the show before its June 13th closing, I highly recommend it!