Notes from Around the Web: Literary Links for Shabbat
Some goodies for you:
Shabbat shalom!
Some goodies for you:
Shabbat shalom!
A few literary links to direct your way before Shabbat:
Shabbat shalom!
Last night I returned from an exhilarating several days in Washington, where I attended the annual conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) and visited the National Museum of American Jewish Military History for a reading from Quiet Americans. I have so much to share with you about this trip, but for the moment, I want to focus on last Thursday’s conference panel: “Beyond Bagels & Lox: Jewish-American Fiction in the 21st Century,” which was listed in the conference program as follows:
Beyond Bagels and Lox: Jewish-American Fiction in the 21st Century. (Erika Dreifus, Andrew Furman, Kevin Haworth, Margot Singer, Anna Solomon) Jewish-American fiction has long been seen as a literature of emigration from the shtetl, assimilationist angst, and overprotective parents. But what’s nu? How do Americans born decades after the Holocaust and the birth of the State of Israel deal with those complex subjects in fiction? Who are the new Jewish immigrant characters? How does American Jewry’s more than 350-year history inspire plot/setting? And how are writers today influenced by Judaism’s rich multilingual and spiritual legacy?
We were assigned a fairly large meeting room, and we were delighted to see that the room was packed. In fact, we ran out of the handouts we’d brought with us, so I promised to post the handout online. Please click here for the PDF. As noted on the handout, our reading list is utterly incomplete–as would be any single-page, double-sided document of this sort. But we think that the handout can be useful nonetheless.
A round of thanks to my amazing co-panelists, and to our interested and engaged audience.
Via the Jewish Book Council, I’ve learned of an exciting event coming up in New York City on Sunday afternoon, February 13. “American Jewish Fiction: Strange and Surprising Stories,” with guest speaker Josh Lambert, will be presented by the Jewish Historical Society of New York. (There will be a $5 admission charge.)
American novels have featured Jewish characters for over a century, and these books tell strange and surprising stories about the experiences of American Jews. What sort of books should be considered Jewish American novels? What are the common narratives and tropes of such works of fiction, and why are they repeated so frequently in the literature of the United States? Who writes these books, and for what audiences? Focusing on some of the earliest and most unusual novels in the American Jewish tradition, and highlighting a few lost gems along the way, this lecture will survey the history of American Jewish fiction and discuss its achievements and possibilities.
For more event details, and Josh Lambert’s very impressive bio, please click here.
She’s a classic storyteller and there’s a clear, direct line from Isaac Bashevis Singer and Bernard Malamud to her 21st-century keyboard.
Please forgive me, but I can’t resist sharing this snippet from a review of my new short-story collection, Quiet Americans. The reviewer is David Abrams, and you can read his full take on the book right here. High praise, indeed! Thank you, David.
Assuming that the trains are running despite snow/ice/sleet, I will be on my way to the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) conference in D.C. tomorrow. I’m unlikely to post while I’m away, but I should have plenty to share once I return.
Have a great several days. See you back here soon.