Researching my next book!

May 21, 2019May 21, 2019beccakinla novel, prewriting, research, Uncategorized Tags: FSU, interviews, jewish, jews, novel, planning your novel, prewriting, research, soviet jews 2 Comments

While I’m deep in the querying process for my first adult novel and my first secular picture book, I’ve started to research my next book. I began with digging out some old interviews I did for an article I published about the Jewish experience of the Cold War, and have acquired some reading material which should help.

And now I’m doing interviews!

Since my university background is in anthropology, I spent quite a bit of time learning how to do interviews for research purposes. It’s a little different than interviewing for an article, because you ask many people similar questions, and then look for patterns and anomalies in those patterns. It took a couple interviews to get into the groove, but now I’m having a blast, and learning a bunch, too.

Photo by Julius Silver on Pexels.com

I love the way so many questions I ask lead to new questions, unexpected little journeys.

In case you are wondering, the topic I’m researching is living under Communism as a Jewish person. I’ve got many female respondents so far, and many people from Russia or the Ukraine. If you are Eastern European, from a Central Asian republic, or male, who was born before 1984 (so you have some memory from before the fall of the Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact), and you would like to be interviewed, email me at beccaklempner@gmail.com.

Are you doing #Readukkah?

December 6, 2015December 6, 2015beccakinla book review, new book, review, reviews, Uncategorized Tags: #Readukkah, books, Chareidi, children, comic, education, hareidi, holocaust, jewish, jews, kidlit, kids, new books, orthodox, shoah, Tuky, WWII, yaakov and the treasure of timna valley Leave a comment

This week has been declared #Readukkah by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL). In honor of the event, I’ve reviewed a new book, and will share other new book news below.

TUKY: THE STORY OF A HIDDEN CHILD by Shterni Rosenfeld (Hachai 2015)

Here’s my Goodreads review: Continue reading →

Stopgap measure: 4 (okay, it’s really 5) totally awesome literary links

September 1, 2014beccakinla Israel, Jewish, Jewish writing, literature, magazines, optimism Tags: Elad Nehorai, geeky, goldfeder, Hevria, Israel, jewish, jews, links, media coverage, nina badzin, popchassid, science, science fiction, summertime 2 Comments

Sorry for the recent lack of posts. Camp was out, day school was still out, kids were home, and Mr. K. started his school year the second week of August. As you can imagine, I’ve been a little busy…the only significant writing I’ve done in the last several week has been a few episodes of my serial.

I’ve got kids home from school for one more day, but recently I’ve been seen some really interesting stuff out there on the web which I believe will be of interest to followers of this blog. So I’m posting those links in lieu of a truly original post by yours truly (although I’ve got an idea about what I want to post next).

Top 4 Cool Things I’ve Seen on the Internet Recently:

If you haven’t seen it yet, this is the best analysis of Israel media coverage ever, with fascinating insider details.
Hevria is the new project of Elad Nehorai from PopChassid. He’s brought together an amazing range of writers to solve problems in the Jewish community through positive action and creativity.
The L.A. Times periodically publishes poetic op-eds. Here’s the latest bunch.
And finally, the geektastic interview with Rabbi Goldfeder about how truly intelligent robots MIGHT actually count in a minyan. I’ve actually had an idea for a SF story for a while with robots, and Rabbi Goldfeder’s research will definitely come in handy.

Hopefully, I’ll be ready to publish the aforementioned post later this week. As a teaser, I’ll tell you that it is partly based on Nina Badzin’s essay from earlier this summer about the things she doesn’t write about. So I guess that’s link #5.

Have you read any of those articles? What did you think? Share your opinions in the comments.

My thoughts on Tablet’s article “Do Jewish Children’s Books Have a Problem with Gender?”

January 23, 2014beccakinla award, children, children's books, Jewish writing, Judaism, kids, parenting, parents, picture books, pj library, stories, women Tags: awards, best jewish books, bias, books, emily sigalow, Fancy Nancy, gender, gender equality, girls, jew, jewish, Jewish Children's Books, jews, judaism, kid lit, kids, picture book, picture books, Tablet, traditional roles, women 1 Comment

Emily Sigalow, in Tablet this week, published an article entitled “Do Jewish Children’s Books Have a Problem with Gender?”

While she does make one point I agree with, that awards committee’s tend to favor Jewish picture books with male lead characters and that the females tend to be engaged in traditional roles, she seems to learn from that that Jewish children’s books as a whole have a problem.

I have to disagree with the overall picture Sigalow paints, though.

You can see my comments on the article if you visit Tablet (scroll to the bottom of the page), but I’d like to make a few more thoughts.

Jewish children’s books do have problems. Actually, many secular books have the same problems. Continue reading →

How Jewish do you sound? Learning the lingo as you learn the ropes

November 24, 2013November 24, 2013beccakinla award, book, Jewish, Judaism, new author Tags: 2012, 2013, accent, acquisition, aramaic, award, becoming frum, frum, hebrew, inflection, jew, jewish, Jewish Americans, jewish literature, jews, judaism, language, lingo, orthodox, Orthodox Jewish, prize, research, rohr, sarah bunin benor, sociolinguistics, speech, syntax, Torah, University Press, variety, yiddish Leave a comment

I promised a full-length review of Becoming Frum: How Newcomers Learn the Language and Culture of Orthodox Judaism by Sarah Bunin Benor (Rutger’s University Press 2012) a while back, but I (embarrassing to admit!) lost the book before I completed it! (Yes, I feel guilty.)

Becoming Frum, recent winner of the Rohr Prize

Thank G-d, the book re-emerged from the piles on my desk recently, and I finally completed it over the weekend, allowing me to at long-last fulfill my promise to review this book, which recently won the 2013 Sami Rohr Choice Award for Jewish Literature

I first became acquainted with the work of Sarah Bunin Benor when she looked for volunteers to complete an online survey of language use among Jewish Americans several years back. When Becoming Frum came out a year ago, I was even more interested, partly because of my sociolinguistics coursework as part of my graduate-level anthropology program, partly because of my own status as a “BT” (someone who “returned” to Orthodox Jewish observance as an adult).

Becoming Frum draws on Benor’s extensive research among both “black hat” and “modern” Orthodox communities. Continue reading →

Need a little poetry this holiday season?

November 21, 2013November 21, 2013beccakinla chanukah, humor, Jewish writing, poem, poetry Tags: 2013, chanukah, funny, haiku, hanukkah, holiday, humor, jewish, jews, judaism, laughs, magazine, poetry, pop culture, season, Tablet, thanksgiving, Thanksgivukkah, wacky Leave a comment

Can’t get enough Thanksgivukkah craziness? Tablet just put out poetry inspired by the crazy Chanukah/Thanksgiving mashup. To check it out, click here.

Here’s my own contribution:

What shall we do with
Our brand-new menurkey
The other seven days?

Rebecca Klempner

Author page of Rebecca Klempner

jews

Researching my next book!

Are you doing #Readukkah?

Stopgap measure: 4 (okay, it’s really 5) totally awesome literary links

Top 4 Cool Things I’ve Seen on the Internet Recently:

Have you read any of those articles? What did you think? Share your opinions in the comments.

My thoughts on Tablet’s article “Do Jewish Children’s Books Have a Problem with Gender?”

I have to disagree with the overall picture Sigalow paints, though.

How Jewish do you sound? Learning the lingo as you learn the ropes

Need a little poetry this holiday season?

Here’s my own contribution:

Share this:

Like this:

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Like this:

Top 4 Cool Things I’ve Seen on the Internet Recently:

Have you read any of those articles? What did you think? Share your opinions in the comments.

Share this:

Like this:

I have to disagree with the overall picture Sigalow paints, though.

Share this:

Like this:

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Like this:

Here’s my own contribution:

Share this:

Like this: