Author: beccakinla

Writing about women’s leadership and education in my synagogue in today’s Jewish Home L.A.

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That article I mentioned in a recent post appears in this week’s edition of The Jewish Home – L.A. If you want to read it, click here for a link to an online version.

I’ve got another interview for another article lined up. I’m a bit nervous because I’ll be interviewing someone who I admire and who is a bit of a celebrity in the English-speaking Orthodox world.

It’s a good thing I’ve got that gig lined up, too. I’m definitely still struggling to write fiction. My brain is deep in the Fall Fuzzies.

Writing lesson: Do your interview and only then decide what kind of article you’re writing

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As I mentioned in a post a few days ago, I pitched a short feature to a magazine and had it accepted. It required some interviews. I did three of them this week, and then sat down to write.

When I originally conceived the article, it was to promote a program in the “Happenings” section of the local Jewish paper. But as I read over the notes I’d taken, I realized the content of the interviews had a deeper significance than the simple 5 Ws and an H about the event. Continue reading →

Is it wrong that I’m kinda looking forward to some hate mail?

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My latest essay, “Stuck in the Middle” (and, yes, I’m quoting the Stealer’s Wheel song on purpose), appears in Tablet Magazine. To summarize: coming from a family of typical American Jewish Liberals, I moved into a community of Orthodox Republicans. And I refuse to blend in with either herd.

Anyone, I’m kinda hoping that I offend someone. I’m even hoping for a little hate mail. Is that normal?

Need a little reading material for those long Yom Tov and Shabbos afternoons?

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Spring is here, and with it come holidays and long Shabbos afternoons. If you have a tween or a teen who likes to spend them reading, check out my two most recent books!

SLIDING DOORS and other stories

(11-16 year olds)

While home sick, a teen interrupts a burglary in progress…

A mysterious stranger offers a young man an extra hour, for one-time use…

Slipping into an alternate universe, a girl discovers a few surprises…

A teenager lacking social skills adjusts to his new yeshiva…

Sliding Doors and other Stories features 17 of my finest stories for tweens and teens and one essay in a single volume sure to please old fans and new ones.

mazal coverMAZAL’S LUCK RUNS OUT

(8-11 year olds)

Do you think of yourself as lucky? Mazal always did – that is, until her luck ran out.

Mazal Tehrani is an 11 year-old girl living in Los Angeles’s bustling Jewish community. Her first name means “luck,” and she’s always been just that: lucky. Mazal has great parents, adorable siblings, and her best friend, Bluma, really is the best! But when one thing goes wrong after another, she starts to wonder, is she lucky after all?

Both titles now available on AMAZON!

What does it take to get you writing? 5 things that get my tuchas in the chair when I don’t want to write

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It didn’t even wait until Fall Back: I’ve been in the dragging, low-creativity state that usually hits me at this time of year for weeks already. It’s not really full-blown SAD, thank G-d, but it’s more a fog in which I feel low-energy and short on ideas. My mood’s okay, just kinda blah. I don’t feel like doing much except curl up with a book and eat chocolate and hang out with Mr. Klempner.

When this feeling first hit, the week after Sukkos, I had so many appointments (long delayed check-ups, for example) and errands I’d put off until after the holidays (new headbands, anyone?) that I didn’t have much time to sit down and write. But after a week or two, those things were taken care of, and I had time to sit at the computer.

Nothing doing. I felt limp. Sleepy. About as creative as a stone.

I’m still feeling that way this week, but today, I was shockingly productive. Why?

Because being a writer is about writing. And the number one way to write is to just stick your tush in the chair and do it.

5 Things That Get My Tuchas in the Chair When I Don’t Really Feel Like Writing: Continue reading →

10 ways to use your writing to add more lovingkindness to the world

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First, pardon me for the super-Jewy intro. I promise this post will get to writing by the end. Over Shabbos, I was reading this:

The book AHAVAS CHESED – The title means “Lovers of Lovingkindness.”

It’s one of the many books authored by Rabbi Yisroel Meir Kagan, known as the Chofetz Chaim (which is the title of his first and possibly most celebrated work).

Ahavas Chesed is about not only how to do acts of lovingkindness, but also how to LOVE to do them. The book has an interesting structure. Continue reading →