Jewish Literary Events Galore

by Erika Dreifus on
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So many events coming up! Here’s a sampling:

March 21, in NYC: Park Avenue Synagogue presents the book launch of The Prophet’s Wife, the unfinished novel of Milton Steinberg. Includes a symposium on March 21. See also details about Anita Diamant’s lecture on “Reimagining the Bible: Fiction, Women, and the Power of Untold Stories,” on Friday evening, March 20.

April 9, in NYC: “New Perspectives on Jewish Writing with Gary Shteyngart and Amy Sohn,” a discussion moderated by Joshua Lambert and followed by a Shabbat dinner.

May 23-25, in Honesdale, Pa.: This exciting workshop on Writing Jewish-Themed Children’s Books is, I hear, sold out. But you never know! If you’re interested, maybe there’s a waitlist. Even if you can’t attend, we’ll have a follow-up guest post here on My Machberet from workshop leader Barbara Krasner to give you the post-conference scoop.

Ending June 15, in Tel Aviv: This Ha’aretz article introduces an exhibition at the Eretz Israel Museum on poet, playwright, and translator Nathan Alterman.

Friday Find: Promptly’s Promptfest

by Erika Dreifus on
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Think you might be able to benefit from some writing prompts this weekend? Do I have a find for you! The Writer’s Digest “Promptly” blog is in the midst of a celebratory “Promptfest,” and you can glean the benefits. This link will take you to lots and lots of prompts. Hope they help! Have a great weekend, and see you back here on Monday.

News About Some Published Practicing Writers

by Erika Dreifus on
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I love drafting posts with the express purpose of congratulating practicing writers on their publication successes. Today, we’re celebrating Lori Ann Bloomfield and Alison Ashley Formento.

Lori’s novel, The Last River Child, was recently published by Second Story Press. Lori was kind enough to send me an e-mail with this note: “Way back in July 2008 you posted that Second Story…was looking for fiction manuscripts. I had just finished writing my first novel, so sent it off to them. Well, they bought the manuscript! It came out in Canada last fall and is being released in the US this month. I’ve been wanting to share my happy story with you for a while and to thank you for your part in my success story. Please encourage your readers to keep writing and to keep submitting!” Lori, I think you’ve just encouraged them! (By the way, Lori is also the power behind a “First Line” blog, which provides fiction writers with some inspiration. And for those of you on Goodreads, Lori is hosting a book giveaway there this month. Now I may have to join yet another social networking site!)

Alison Formento‘s children’s picture book, This Tree Counts!, was published earlier this month by Albert Whitman & Company. Alison and illustrator Sarah Snow have done an outstanding job with this book. How do I know this? Alison apparently reads Practicing Writing attentively enough to know that I have a young niece and nephew, and she very graciously offered to send a copy to share with them. Some of you may know that my niece is developing into a very picky reader (you can’t begin to know how much this bothers me), but both she and her little brother were fully caught up in Alison’s story when Grandma read it to them for the first time the other day. I can’t come up with a better “review” than that.

I thank both Alison and Lori for sharing the news of their successes so generously with me. Let’s give them a big round of virtual applause, shall we?

Books, Books, and More Books

by Erika Dreifus on
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It’s going to take me awhile to really absorb Kathy Bloomfield’s amazing catalog of “books that matter” on forwords.com.

Here’s a bit of the philosophy behind Kathy’s choices:

“In addition to the best in Jewish children’s literature, we also look for secular books with Jewish values content. As I decide which of the many new, wonderfully illustrated and delightfully told stories I want to review for my catalog each year, I keep in mind Jewish tradition and Jewish VALUES. I then try to find those books that will convey the values appropriate to a specific age level and curriculum in the best and most effective way possible. Finally, and probably most importantly, I look for those books that will excite the imagination of the children, being taught in a way that will tie them firmly into the lesson being presented, and create for them an internal moral encyclopedia from which they can retrieve information to help them deal with life’s challenges in a Jewishly ethical way.”

Sound good to you? Click on over to the site and download your own copy of the catalog.

(Thanks to the Association of Jewish Libraries for the tip!)

Quotation(s) of the Week: Roddy Doyle

by Erika Dreifus on
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I’ve always advised my writing friends and students to title their works-in-progress. So I was happy to see this advice for fiction-writing:

4. Do give the work a name as quickly as possible. Own it, and see it. Dickens knew Bleak House was going to be called Bleak House before he started writing it. The rest must have been easy.

8. Do change your mind. Good ideas are often murdered by better ones. I was working on a novel about a band called the Partitions. Then I decided to call them the Commitments.

Source: Roddy Doyle, quoted in Ten Rules for Writing Fiction (which you’ve probably seen mentioned elsewhere online since posting last month).

Frankly, I also find this advice extremely reassuring because I have just retitled my story collection.