From My Bookshelf: “Helpful to Israel and the Jewish People”–An Interview with Nora Gold

FieldsofExileDr. Nora Gold’s Fields of Exile has been described as the first novel about anti-Israelism on campus, and it has received enthusiastic advance praise from Phyllis Chesler, Thane Rosenbaum, Steve Stern, and others. Gold is also the author of the acclaimed Marrow and Other Stories, which won a Canadian Jewish Book Award, as well as praise from Alice Munro, who – after reading the title story – wrote Gold: “Bravo!”

I’ve been a fan of the Toronto-based Gold and her work since reading that collection. And I’ve also had work published in Jewish Fiction.net, an online journal that Gold founded and edits. When I discovered that Fields of Exile was slated for a May 2014 release, I knew that I’d be eager to read it (and I said so in a piece for The Forward‘s Arty Semite blog at the beginning of the year). As I noted then, the new novel seems all-too-timely to anyone following news accounts about the vilification of Israel in academia. According to the novel’s publisher, Dundurn, this novel is “about love, betrayal, and the courage to stand up for what one believes as well as a searing indictment of the hypocrisy and intellectual sloth that threatens the integrity of our society.”

Gold is also a blogger for “The Jewish Thinker” at Haaretz, and the Writer-in-Residence and an Associate Scholar at the Centre for Women’s Studies in Education (CWSE) at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto. Gold holds both Canadian and Israeli citizenship.

Please welcome Nora Gold! (more…)

Friday Finds for Writers

Treasure ChestWriting-related resources, news, and reflections to enjoy over the weekend.

  • Over on The Missouri Review’s blog, Michael Nye has posted some thoughts on MFA degrees that I find resonant–others, Facebook has indicated to me, are finding them provocative.
  • Following the death of Gabriel García Márquez, The New Yorker has unlocked García Márquez materials from its archive.
  • Francine Prose and Leslie Jamison take on the question, “Is It O.K. to Mine Real Relationships for Literary Material?”.
  • On advocating “but”; I share the author’s enthusiasm for the word, but have found it edited out all too often.
  • And for your weekend listening: a podcast of Richard Ford’s recent conversation with Ron Charles, courtesy of The Pen/Faulkner Foundation.
  • Have a wonderful weekend, everyone.