rebecca klempner

I have been swallowed whole.

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Okay, really, I’ve been swallowed in pieces. Work is swallowing part of me, and my kids (all home for the summer) are swallowing the rest. There apparently isn’t much left for blogging.

One little bit of nifty news is that I started occasionally guest posting for Jew in the City. My first two posts went up last week and the week before. You can find the first one, “When The ‘Less Religious’ Woman Was Frummer Than Me,” here; and the second one, “A Kiddush Hashem In A Most Unexpected Place,” there.

Between swim lessons and jaunts to local museums, I have editing and writing to do. Thank G-d, have four writing assignments to squeeze in the next few weeks. Between this, that, and the other, I’ll probably be blogging infrequently throughout the summer, but hopefully I’ll be back in good form in the fall.

Novelization of Glixman in a Fix: contract signed, book IY”H due out next year

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For a while now, I’ve been sitting on a little morsel of news, because I’m exceedingly paranoid about the evil eye (embarrassing, but true): I’ve signed a contract with Menucha Publishers for the novelization of Glixman in a Fix, my serial from Binah BeTween.

This morning, I received the list of changes the editor would like to see in the novelization. The list is totally reasonable, and mostly consists of changes I suggested in the first place, mostly fixing loose ends I dropped and introducing an idea earlier in the text so that it’s less surprising when it pops up near the end.

For some reason, I feel short of breath and ill to the stomach, like I’m about 5 minutes away from a panic attack. I’m not sure if it’s excitement or fear of failure triggering my parasympathetic nervous system. I’m pretty sure I’m experiencing both.

Assuming I complete the changes and everything else (editing, book design, proofreading, etc.) runs on schedule, the book will – G-d willing! – be published next summer-ish. You’ll get updates on all breaking news as the situation develops. 😉

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

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cropped-sliding-doors-cover.jpg

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!

They loved it, they hated it: Feedback on my story from Binah’s Sukkos Supplement, “From the Furthest Reaches of the Heavens”

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I have emerged from the semi-hibernation of Sukkos (if you can call a holiday that involved cooking 10 fancy meals – many with with guests – hibernation) and am looking forward to a week chock full of work. I’ve got a personal essay to write for one of the sites I frequent, another to revise for a literary journal, and spent most of today editing. That’s on top of some work I want to do on one of my ongoing projects. And did I mention I still have to market the two books I recently self-published?

Earth on 1967-11-09, as seen from Apollo 4.

But I’d like to take a moment to look back on the story I published in Binah Magazine’s Vistas story supplement, “From the Furthest Reaches of the Heavens.”

SUMMARY

In case you haven’t read the story (and I’m assuming many of my blog readers haven’t), I’ll summarize it: Continue reading →

Signs you might want to buy one of my new books

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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 →

Oh, all right, I’ll spill the beans.

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So, yesterday’s post mentioned that I’ve been working on a few big projects. I can’t tell you about all of them, but I can tell you about two:

  1. I’ve compiled several of the stories I have published previously in international Jewish kids’ magazines into an anthology, selecting the ones that got the most fan mail, and which teachers have mentioned they’d like to use in their classrooms. I’m self-publishing it, IY”H. Target audience: readers age 10-16. We’re just waiting on the proofs – which I’ll have to proofread – before they will be up for sale.
  2. Also on the self-publishing front, many years ago, I had a number of stories starring two characters, Esti and Bluma, which ran in a local-to-L.A. Jewish magazine. Those stories got lots of fan mail here in L.A., so I started to shop around for a publisher. I had a couple near-misses, where a publisher said they were very interested, but then backed out pretty late in the game. After that, I added some more material, changed some things around to make it more like a middle-grade novel, as opposed to a short story collection, and tried yet another publisher. As they say in Yiddish: gornisht. My husband, though, really believed in the book, and my beta testers – kids from around the neighborhood – enjoyed it thoroughly. Doing Maker Camp over the summer really inspired me, as well as this post on Positive Writer, so after working on the anthology, I pulled out this older manuscript and started editing that one.

G-d willing, I’ll have news for you soon about these upcoming releases. I’m hoping to have them available online and at bookshops in L.A. Keep your eyes peeled for updates! (And prayers for the success of this project are welcome.)