The Good News: I’m posting at my regular Wednesday time!
The Bad News: I skipped the last two weeks, even though Passover was over.
The Good News: Glixman in a Fix is officially for sale! Continue reading
kosher
Signs you might want to buy one of my new books
BOTH MY NEW BOOKS ARE UP AND RUNNING ON AMAZON! WAHOO!
(Do I sound excited?)
Mazal’s Luck Runs Out is for ages 8-11.
My life is being taken over by marketing (What? Did you say there’s a Jewish holiday coming? More than one? You mean I have to cook, too? ARGH!). Also, I’m working on no budget here, but at least people can actually buy both Mazal’s Luck Runs Out and Sliding Doors and other stories online now.
With no further ado… Continue reading
Exciting news! One book ready for orders, the other nearly ready!
When my husband checked the mail after Rosh Hashanah had ended, he found a couple packages for me in our mailbox from Createspace. In one, we found the proof of the anthology that I’ve been working on, Sliding Doors and other stories, and the other package contained the proof of Mazal’s Luck Runs Out.
I’ve been spending the last couple days proofreading those books. In Sliding Doors, the font size suggested by the template was so small, I was afraid no one would be able to read it. I went back and increase it. I also had do a lot of clean-up on the italics. The stories in the collection were from different magazines, with different policies about how to handle foreign words. With so many Hebrew and Yiddish terms throughout the text, punctuating these terms consistently was a big job, and I didn’t catch them all before uploading files to Createspace.
Mazal had some similar issues, but I also discovered that I didn’t like the cover I’d designed. I spent a lot of time tinkering with it to get it right.
Sliding Doors is still not quite ready for release, but duh-duh-dah:
Here’s the link to Mazal’s Luck Runs Out!
It’s available already in paperback via Createspace and Amazon. If you order it now, you should receive it by Sukkos! And if you buy it…please post a review on Amazon! And tell other prospective readers if you like it!
The target audience is Jewish kids 8-11, the kids who like the stories in Mishpacha Junior, Binah Bunch, and so on. The main character of this novella is Mazal, a Persian girl living in Los Angeles. The average Orthodox girl will identify with her misadventures, but it was especially important to me to represent a strong Persian Jewish character, something rarely seen in kids’ fiction.
I hope to have news about the other book soon.
Here’s me, with the proof of Sliding Doors and other stories. It’s not quite ready yet for ordering.
Find my new reviews for Bina Lobell’s Super Secret Diary and Not for Sale in the latest Jewish Home L.A.
My reviews of Bina Lobell’s Super Secret Diary by Ruchama Feuerman and Not for Sale by Bracha Rosman are on page 16 of the most recent edition of The Jewish Home L.A. You can find those reviews here.
Remembering Gil Marks and his contribution to Jewish books and cooking
Last week, Gil Marks passed away at the untimely age of 62. He was a legendary food writer, known not only for his recipes, but for his contribution to our understanding of Jewish food. He did extensive research on the details of recipes, their cultural connections, and place in history. Because I trained as an anthropologist, his ethnological approach to Jewish food made him by far my favorite cookbook author.
Remembering Gil Marks and his contribution to Jewish books.
His most famous books are The World of Jewish Cooking, Olive Trees and Honey: A Treasury of Vegetarian Recipes from Jewish Communities Around the World and Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. That final title is my absolute favorite cookbook of all time. It actually makes fun reading even if you make not one recipe. Marks also wrote extensively for periodicals, such as Emunah Magazine.
Twenty years ago, most people thought of latkes, kugel, kishke, and borsht when they referred to “Jewish Food.” Marks changed that and became among those who popularized Sephardic and Mizrachi cuisine. Continue reading
Interview with Suri Rosen, author of Playing with Matches
Today, I have the pleasure of sharing with my readers an interview with Suri Rosen, the author of a new YA novel, Playing with Matches. (You can find my review of the highly-entertaining Playing with Matches here.)
Suri piqued my interest in part because she has published her first book — a book with universal themes but with distinctively Orthodox characters and setting — with a mainstream, secular publisher. Most books with Orthodox themes tend to be published by Jewish publishers. I conducted this interview last week via email.
RK: This is your first novel, but as many of the reviewers have noted, you write with real skill. In particular, you handle Rain’s voice with humor and confidence. Have you published other genres before, taken classes, or to what else do you attribute your success?
SR: I’ve always been writing. (I cover this in detail on this website,’Dear Teen Me.’)
I read numerous books and blogs about writing and spent countless hours discussing technique with other novelists. But the most important aspect of becoming a publishable author – to me – is getting feedback. Giving a critique also sharpens your craft but getting a critique to me is the single most important factor in developing yourself as a writer.
And it can be brutal! Continue reading
Rebecca Klempner 