From My Bookshelf: “The Hope,” by Faye Rapoport DesPres

Faye Rapaport DesPres
Faye Rapaport DesPres

Sometimes I marvel over the literary connections that the Internet has brought into my life–and the many pages of beautiful, important writing to which they’ve led me. Case in point: I have yet to meet Faye Rapoport DesPres face-to-face. But I feel as though I know her, in part through our social-media exchanges, and in part through her memoiristic writing.

Recently, I’ve had the pleasure of reading an advance copy of Faye’s memoir-in-essays, Message from a Blue Jay: Love, Loss, and One Writer’s Journey Home (Buddhapuss Ink). The book, available this month, includes one essay that I wanted to spotlight for My Machberet‘s readers. I’m delighted that Faye agreed to answer my questions (especially since she also took the time to participate in another interview about the broader collection; that Q&A will appear in the next issue of The Practicing Writer).

Faye Rapoport DesPres was born in New York City, and over the years she has lived in upstate New York, Colorado, England, Israel, and Massachusetts. Early in her career, Faye worked as a writer for environmental organizations that focused on protecting wildlife and natural resources. In 1999, after switching to journalism, she won a Colorado Press Association award as a staff writer for a Denver weekly newspaper, where she wrote news stories, features, and interviews. Faye’s freelance work has since appeared in The New York Times, Animal Life, Trail and Timberline, and a number of other publications.

In 2010, Faye earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Pine Manor College’s Solstice Low-Residency MFA Program, where she studied creative nonfiction. Her personal essays, fiction, book reviews, and interviews have appeared in a variety of literary journals and magazines, including Ascent, Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, Eleven Eleven, Fourth Genre, Hamilton Stone Review, Necessary Fiction, Platte Valley Review, Prime Number Magazine, Superstition Review, and The Writer’s Chronicle. (more…)

Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen

Every Friday morning My Machberet presents an assortment of Jewish-interest links, primarily of the literary variety.

  • Stunning piece by Rachel Kadish on teaching creative nonfiction in Israel.
  • Terrific work by William Giraldi on “the long journey of Aharon Appelfeld.”
  • The Internet has been abuzz with the news that Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent will be made into a miniseries.
  • ICYMI: The May Jewish Book Carnival posted yesterday. Plenty of goodies there for you.
  • Also: some recent poems of mine (and a poem for/about me, too!).
  • Shabbat shalom.

    Words of the Week: Bernard Malamud

    Malamud“I’m an American, I’m a Jew, and I write for all men. A novelist has to, or he’s built himself a cage. I write about Jews, when I write about Jews, because they set my imagination going. I know something about their history, the quality of their experience and belief, and of their literature, though not as much as I would like. Like many writers I’m influenced especially by the Bible, both Testaments. I respond in particular to the East European immigrants of my father’s and mother’s generation; many of them were Jews of the Pale as described by the classic Yiddish writers. And of course I’ve been deeply moved by the Jews of the concentration camps, and the refugees wandering from nowhere to nowhere. I’m concerned about Israel. Nevertheless, Jews like rabbis Kahane and Korff set my teeth on edge. Sometimes I make characters Jewish because I think I will understand them better as people, not because I am out to prove anything. That’s a qualification. Still another is that I know that, as a writer, I’ve been influenced by Hawthorne, James, Mark Twain, Hemingway, more than I have been by Sholem Aleichem and I. L. Peretz, whom I read with pleasure. Of course I admire and have been moved by other writers, Dostoyevsky and Chekhov, for instance, but the point I’m making is that I was born in America and respond, in American life, to more than Jewish experience. I wrote for those who read.”

    Source: Bernard Malamud’s 1974 “Art of Fiction” interview in The Paris Review. (Thanks to Kyle Minor for bringing this to my attention on Twitter this past weekend, which marked the 100th anniversary of Malamud’s birth.)

    Jewish Literary Links for Shabbat

    Photo Credit: Reut Miryam Cohen
    Every Friday morning My Machberet presents an assortment of Jewish-interest links, primarily of the literary variety.

  • In The Barnes & Noble Review: an interview with Israeli author David Grossman about his newly translated book Falling out of Time.
  • I haven’t wanted to spend my precious reading time with John B. Judis’s Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict. Here’s another review that explains why that’s the case.
  • From Tablet: “Second Seder,” a Passover poem by Andrea Cohen.
  • Catch up with the monthly Jewish Book Carnival: April’s edition is hosted by The Whole Megillah.
  • LABA, “a non-religious Jewish house of study and culture laboratory at the 14th Street Y” in New York, has issued a call for fellowship applications. Next year’s theme: “TIME.” No fee to apply. Deadline: May 12, 2014. The program awards stipends to its fellows.
  • Shabbat shalom.

    Call for Fiction that Engages with “the American Jewish Experience”

    Via email:

    fig tree logo“Fig Tree Books is a new publishing house currently seeking fiction manuscripts that engage with the American Jewish experience (AJE). Fig Tree Books has responded to the need for a publisher to champion emerging and unique voices and created a place where writers about the AJE can launch their work into the world with visible celebration and support. Fig Tree Books is passionate about discovering new voices as well as expanding the audience for established writers. Although a small press, FTB has the resources to offer competitive advances, a variety of publishing formats, and a comprehensive marketing plan for authors. All books will be published in print and e-format, backed by a major distributor. FTB’s mission is to add to the rich tradition of literary American fiction that appeals to a major commercial market.

    The senior editor, Michelle Caplan, is actively seeking both new and establishing talent and will consider work from everyone, including those with no prior credits. She is in the process of trying to get the word out about Fig Tree Books and eager to recruit manuscripts and authors that may fit their model. She would love to provide more details about Fig Tree Books to any interested writers or agents with original materials or out-of-print classics on the AJE. You can contact her directly: MCaplan(at)FigTreeBooks(dot)net. Please take a look at their website www.FigTreeBooks.net, which will give you a good overview of who they are and their mission. You can find the link for submission guidelines on their home page.”