Would you like to hear the perspectives of seven different female Jewish bloggers about haircovering? Melissa Amster, the Merryland Girl, is hosting Orthodox Women Talk today, and we’ve got plenty different opinions represented: from those who cover, those who don’t, those who found it challenging to get used to, and those who love it. We have women who wear wigs, scarves, and everything in between.
Care to check it out? Read here.
A couple weeks back, Kristen M. Ploetz posted several questions she wished she could have answered by other writers. The post has generated a bit of buzz, with replies by two bloggers I admire, Nina Badzin and Rivki Silver (which is where I first heard of it).
(And then Rivki made me cry happy tears by saying she admired my work. I love her site, so the feeling is mutual.)
I found both the original post and the follow-ups fascinating. A lot of what all three bloggers had to say was about self-identification as a writer. At what point does a person who writes become a “writer?” Another theme was how the writer — whose job is by nature often solitary — interacts with their social milieu, both in their personal lives and in their professional ones.
Here are the original questions in bold. I’ll add my responses below each of them.
1. Do you share your work with your partner or spouse? Does it matter if it’s been published yet? Continue reading
I’m mortified. Having recently come to grips with the necessity of getting a Facebook account, I’ve now succumbed to Twitter. You can’t apply for the new Amtrak Artist Residency program without it, and you can’t get some writing gigs without it (because they want you to publicize), and now I’ve joined the flock.
I actually took a class last year about Social Media from Carol Tice and Linda Formacelli, and so I’m not totally incompetent at stuff like this. I just feel like I’m incompetent at this kind of thing.
If you’d like to follow me on Twitter, you can find me @KlempnerJots and read what I’ve got to say about about the world of books and magazines and all sorts of random things that appeal to me.
I am not a blogger.
There, I said it.
I came to this realization yesterday, after the funny (as in “weird,” not in “haha”) response I had to PopChassid’s marvelous list of 7 bloggers he thinks deserve more attention. As I read about all the fabulous bloggers (Several I had heard of, and a couple I had not…my favorite post by one of the unfamiliar ones was Ruchi Koval’s interview with her yetzer hara. Just so funny and true!), I felt more and more (embarrassing to admit) jealous.
Now, I’ve blogged here before about how important it is not to envy other writers. I’m a big believer in being farginen those around me. But I sensed something unusual about the variety of jealousy I was experiencing. Continue reading
So, Tablet published a piece of mine this week. It’s been a crazy experience.
In the first place, writing the piece was a bit out of my comfort zone. While I usually write fiction, this is a personal essay. In brief, the story is about confronting my inner teenager as I’m approaching 40 and relates an episode where I thought a younger man was checking me out in a cafe.
Trolls don’t only live under bridges.
The subject matter was outside the editorial policies of the chareidi magazines that comprise my usual stomping grounds, so I had to find an alternative publisher. Afraid I might embarrass my husband, I almost decided not to publish it at all, but he assured me that he didn’t mind. And when I shared an early draft with writing friends, the strongly positive reaction encouraged me further.
Tablet accepted my query, then the completed essay. They had it up in a matter of days. Whoa. It didn’t leave me much time to prepare myself. And, boy, did I have to prepare myself.
You see, there’s a lot of differences between a Jewish, but broad-spectrum, online magazine like Tablet and print magazines in the chareidi world. The biggest difference is the comments section.
In a print magazine, there is no comments section. Continue reading
As part of a course I’m taking through Carol Tice’s amazing website Make a Living Writing, I received the following homework assignment: put an avatar up on Gravatar to pop up whenever I comment on blogs, etc. Now, I could use a photo, but that would just be no fun, so I decided to create my own Gravatar.
Me, in black and white and nothing on my head to cover my hair. For shame!
I started off by googling “free avatar tools” and discovered a lot of nifty links to different programs to help you make your avatar. The best site I found was Digibody. The results of a picture created with their Avatar-Maker tools look much nicer and more professional than those created with other programs, I found.
However, that left me with a small problem. Or rather three:
Here’s what I did:
Thanks to Microsoft Paint, I added my headscarf, glasses, and a touch of color.
This is my DIY avatar. It’s recognizably me.
What do you think of the end product? I’d love some reviews in the comments.
Rebecca Klempner 