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Digital Storytelling: “A Wrinkle In Time,” by Paul Zakrzewski

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled

Paul Zakrzewski has many literary talents, and to his collection of authorial skills he has recently added digital storytelling. An early result: this short video essay, “A Wrinkle in Time.”

As Paul explains:

This short video essay covers a trip to Poland I took with my wife and 13-month-old son. That was in July 2008.

We spent a week with Genia Olczak, who was my dad’s nanny before WWII and hid him and several other Jewish family members during the Holocaust.

The film was made in a workshop sponsored by the Center for Digital Storytelling in April 2011.

Genia passed away in September 2008, a month after our trip. She was 95.

Notes from Around the Web: Literary Links for Shabbat

by Erika Dreifus on
Disabled
  • Mazel Tov to Austin Ratner, who has won the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature in fiction for his debut novel, The Jump Artist (Bellevue Literary Press), and to Joseph Skibell, who is the runner-up and recipient of of the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature Choice Award. His award-winning novel is A Curable Romantic (Algonquin). Two more books on my to-read list.
  • Make that three. After reading Sandee Brawarsky’s review, I’m putting Sharon Pomerantz’s Rich Boy atop the list.
  • “With new Jewish-themed television programs, critically acclaimed Jewish fiction, experimental electro-klezmer bands and Jewish-Muslim theater groups, British Jews are producing obviously Jewish-inflected artworks in increasingly vibrant and creative ways, which often become part of the mainstream culture,” writes Rebecca Schischa, for The Jewish Week.
  • Adam Kirsch reviews the newly-available translation (by Tim Wilkinson) of Imre Kertesz’s Fiasco.
  • For his part, Jonathan Kirsch reviews and recommends a new novel by Alan Cheuse, Song of Slaves in the Desert, which features a character “who stands in for the 3 to 5 percent of American slaveholders in the antebellum South who were Jewish.”
  • Job alert: “New Voices and JSPS [the Jewish Student Press Service] are seeking a full-time Editor in Chief/Executive Director. New Voices is the only national, independent magazine written for and by Jewish college students. Published by the Jewish Student Press Service (est. 1971), New Voices and newvoices.org cover Jewish issues from a student perspective. JSPS also runs the annual National Jewish Student Journalism conference, now in its 40th year.”
  • Another job alert, this time from the Jewish Federation of Broward County, Fla., which is seeking a part-time PJ Library Community Coordinator.

    • Writers Respond to “There Is a Mirror in My Heart: Reflections on a Righteous Grandfather”

    by Erika Dreifus on
    1

    Uncharacteristically, my mother and I arrived a few minutes late. We missed the introductory remarks, but we managed to find two empty seats together in the large room that was filled with listeners who had gathered Monday evening at the Yeshiva University Museum/Center for Jewish History to hear poets present original writings in dialogue with an exhibition titled “There is a Mirror in My Heart: Reflections on a Righteous Grandfather.”

    (more…)

    Notes from Around the Web: Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled
  • Looking for some book suggestions? Check out these reviews from the spring issue of Jewish Book World. (Ahem, does one of those books look especially familiar???)
  • If you’re interested in writing Jewish-themed children’s books, you’ll want to take a look at this workshop offering.
  • Remember when I told you about The Forward‘s poetry contest commemorating the centenary of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire? Here’s the winning poem in English. (And here is a special section from The Forward presenting translations of coverage from 100 years ago.)
  • Josh Lambert’s latest books column for Tablet features a number of Italy-themed offerings. (And why not?)
  • Continuing with Italy: This week, I happened to discover Janna Malamud Smith’s striking essay, “An Italian Tragedy.” Smith’s father was Bernard Malamud; her mother was the daughter of Neapolitan immigrants.
  • In my previous life as a student and teacher of 20th-century French history, I would have been sure to attend next week’s event at Columbia University, a conference at the Maison Française on “The Rescue of Jews in France and its Empire during World War II.” The conference is free and open to the public, and it will feature evening film screenings by Pierre Sauvage, whose work I’ve mentioned on this blog before.
  • This Tablet story is the kind of thing I read and immediately begin envisioning as a work of fiction. I seem to be drawn to moral quandaries that confront families.
  • And speaking of families, here’s a glimpse of my niece’s Purim costume. (Of course, when R. first told me that she’d be dressing up as “Three Musketeers,” Aunt-Erika-the-Author imagined a more literary outfit.)

    • Shabbat shalom, everyone, and Chag Purim!

    Notes from Around the Web: Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

    by Erika Dreifus on
    Disabled

    Just a few literary links to share with you:

    • Publishers Weekly provides an overview of the Jerusalem International Book Fair. (See also my Monday post.)
    • Sweet essay on Tablet about one American student’s experience studying in Israel at the same time as Natalie Portman.
    • Speaking of Tablet, look who’s talking about Quiet Americans this week!
    • From The Jewish Week: A fascinating article by Miriam Intrator on the postwar fate of “Europe’s salvaged Jewish libraries.” And an equally superb piece by Paul Zakrzewski examines the current state of Jewish memoirs.
    • Next week will be a challenging one for our friend, Jewish Muse. Here’s why.
    • The next Jewish Book Council Twitter Book Club, featuring author Andrew Winer and his novel, The Marriage Artist, is scheduled for Wednesday, March 2. Details here.

    Shabbat shalom!