February 2008 Newsletter

From www.WriteInIsrael.com
Dedicated to creating a supportive environment for English writers in Israel

Contents

1. Shards
2. Your Publications
3. The Writing Life

1. Shards

• Evan Fallenberg, recently returned from a successful US book tour, will discuss book writing and publishing on Thurs. Feb. 28th at Solo Café, 76 Arlozorov, Tel Aviv. He’ll also read from his highly acclaimed book Light Fell. RSVP to Writer Café Moderator, Stephanie at stefanella.stef@gmail.com
• ARC19 reading at Tel Aviv University, Sunday, February 24th, 4 pm. Rosenberg 01 Bldg near Diaspora Museum. With editors Mordechai Beck and Jeffrey Green and participants Jerome Mandel and Karen Alkalay-Gut, among others.
• The Poetry of Surprise: a writing workshop in English on Tuesday evenings with poet Lisa Katz at the Poetry Place in Jerusalem, starting March 18, 2008. Email poetryplace1@gmail.com for details.
• The Deronda Review accepts submissions until March 14, 2008 for its 2nd issue. Submit 5 poems (maximum) or 1 short prose piece (500 words) in the body of an email to maber4kids@yahoo.com. For further info. go to www.pointandcircumference.com. While both the editor-in-chief in the US and the Israeli editor (Mindy Aber Barad) are frum women, “the audience is definitely a mixed one.”
• Carol Unger is doing a four-week workshop in her Telzstone home on Tuesday mornings. “Interesting brain-stretching exercises.” Contact Carol at tzirelchana@yahoo.com
• Poems for the Jewish Holidays, an anthology by Judith Sokoloff and Gerd Stern, seeks poems relating to a Jewish holiday/festival/celebration/life-cycle event. Send to gerd@intermediafoundation.org by April 1, 2008.
• Ruth Mason’s column “Life in the 50’s” can be accessed by going to www.Jpost.com, clicking on “local news,” scrolling down to “Life in the 50’s.”
• Rosally Saltsman is collecting stories for Stories to Touch the Jewish Heart (tentative title). She prefers first person, “true stories that resonate with kindness, divine providence and faith.” Target audience is frum. Send queries and stories to rosally_s@yahoo.com.
• Gila Green is looking for food-related stories for an anthology called Food for Thought: Stories You can Taste. Either submit at WEbook.com or email Gila at greens@netvision.net.il. Put “WEbook food anthology” in the subject line.
• James Murray-White is a co-editor of a wonderful blog: http://greenprophet.com: “Foreseeing a green, environmentally sound future for Israel and its neighbors.”
• Tania Hershman’s 4th issue of The Short Review is available online at www.theshortreview.com. Anyone writing short stories should visit.
• Now is the time to apply to The Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University for the next academic year. For details, go to www.biu.ac.il/HU/en/cw

2. Your Publications and Jobs

• If you have a job as an editor of a magazine, journal, blog, newsletter, or publishing house that seeks writers, let me know. For example, Esther Susan Heller, from Safed, has recently become the Editor-in-Chief at Targum Press in Jerusalem. Mazal Tov Esther. She writes: “If you have writers who are interested in publishing in the frum world, feel free to send them to me.” Contact Esther at jwriting@kinneret.co.il
• Atar Hadari, who used to teach in the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan, had his poetry collection was accepted by Foothills Publications in the US. Currently, Hadari lives in England.
• Jacob Lampart’s story “Miss Finkelstein” will appear in the Spring 2008 issue of Greensboro Review. Jacob lives in Jerusalem.
• Shoshana London Sappir wrote about her experiences at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. You can read it at http://www.gse.harvard.edu/news_events/ed/2008/winter/appian/lessons.html
• Gila (Green) Tal’s piece “Modesty” was accepted to The Mom Egg, official publication of the annual Mamapalooza Festival in NYC, 2008. Her “I Put Him on the Bottle” was accepted to the Nothing But Red Anthology. “Still Life With Father,” an excerpt from her novel, was accepted to the February issue of PresentTense magazine. When I asked Gila how she finds these outlets, she told me she surfs the net while nursing her baby.

3. The Writing Life—Walking and Writing

Lately, I read something about the positive effects of walking on the circulation of the blood and lymphatic system. I usually read such things after sitting in front of the computer for eight hours, exhausted, hungry, and frustrated. I know in my bones and my lymph nodes that what I need is a good walk, but either it’s raining outside or a cold wind is howling or it’s too dark or too bright or the jackals are telling me to stay inside until morning. I listen to the jackals and sit down, albeit in another room, and eat. Then it’s time for the news and I sit, albeit in another chair, for Channel 10’s coverage of Barak Obama. By now it is close to nine and the jackals are screaming in the wadi outside my living room, telling me to stay put. I listen to the jackals.

Once, when I lived in Jerusalem, I used to walk on the Jerusalem tayelet at 6:30 in the morning. What a wonderful way to wake up. When I moved to the country, I tried morning walks around Moshav Beit Zayit, but instead of loving the hills, dirt paths, and vistas of spires from Ein Kerem and the noble buildings of Hadassah Hospital, I kept looking for the golden dome of the Mosque of Omar, the monochrome hills of the Judean desert, the walls of the Old City, even the ugly gray separation fence.

My walking has taken a setback this winter, but I still believe in the power of walk to get out of depression, confusion, frustration, writer’s block, memory loss, sore back and poor blood and lymph fluid circulation. That’s why I support and even occasionally participate in long hikes that raise funds for worthy causes, like Melabev’s “Don’t Forget me Walkathon” and Tsad Kadima’s “Hike For Hope.”

Melabev runs eight day care centers in Jerusalem and one in Beit Shemesh for “the frail elderly,” which is to say people with Alzheimer-like symptoms. I participated in their first hike and felt totally righteous, able, healthy, and far from being an Alzheimer patient myself, despite my fears, since my mother has suffered from Alzheimer for the past eight years. I see how devastating this disease is, not only for the victim who floats in cognitive limbo, but also for the families, who float in perpetual mourning.

Tsad Kadima is a national organization that helps rehabilitate physically handicapped children and young adults. Two of the founders, Marc and Eli Render, were my former neighbors in Baaka, Jerusalem. They brought to Israel the method of conductive education, developed by Hungarian physician, Prof. Andras Peto, to help CP victims aim for greater independence. See http://www.conductive-ed.org.uk/index.html.

On April 22-24, during Chol Hamoed Pesach, Tsad Kadima will sponsor its 4th Hike For Hope to benefit physically challenged children and young adults. I encourage you and your Pesach guests from abroad to join this worthy hike along the Israel Trail in the Negev (1-2 day options). After the hike, participants will join Tsad Kadima’s children and young adults for a joint wheelchair/walk along the edge of the Ramon Crater and a festive barbeque. Visit www.tsadkadima.org.il for details.

I’m partial to Tsad Kadima for two reasons. 1) I had a baby brother who was born a vegetable and Cleveland’s cerebral palsy organization helped my parents cope. 2) Marc and Eli Render transformed their own personal, family crisis, when their daughter Miriam was born with CP, into a national organization that helps hundreds of Israeli families. How many of us complain, moan, just worry about ourselves and our own families? How inspiring when families rally around a personal challenge for the common good of the community.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Renders first imagined Tsad Kadima while walking in the neighborhood, one step forward at a time.

We writers need not emulate Henry David Thoreau who walked four hours a day, but a short trek five times a week would definitely improve our writing and maybe even benefit the wider community.

Happy Trails,

Judy

January 2008 Newsletter

From www.WriteInIsrael.com

Dedicated to creating a supportive environment for English writers in Israel

Contents

1. Shards
2. Your Publications
3. The Writing Life

1. Shards

• The IAWE (Israel Association of Writers in English) is sponsoring two events to promote the publication of Arc 19 Writing and Other Arts, edited by Jeffrey Green and Mordechai Beck. The first is on Jan. 22, 7:30 pm at Tmol Shilshom, 5 Yoel Solomon St., Jerusalem. The second is on Feb. 24, 4 pm at Tel Aviv University (Room 001, Webb Bldg.) At both events some of the authors published in Arc 19 will read their work.
• If you want to hone your creative writing skills in fiction or poetry, now is the time to apply to The Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University. Students from around the world devote two years to their craft, earning an MA from the Dept. of English upon completion of a thesis. Excellent instructors, dedicated mentors, supportive environment. Summer semester begins six weeks before the chagim: Mondays and Thursday, noon–5. During fall and spring semesters, minimum one day a week (Tuesdays, noon–5:30) for first year. For full details and on-line application, go to www.biu.ac.il/HU/en/cw
• Joan Leegant, author of An Hour In Paradise, gave me this wonderful link and I am passing it on to you. If you like it, send it to a writer friend: The New York Times Writers on Writing Archive at www.nytimes.com/books/specials/writers.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
• For a lively web site on interior design, check out www.tchochkes.com. I love the energy on this site, the dynamic relationship between visuals and writing.
• If you read/write short stories or short shorts, visit issue three of Tania Hershman’s web site www.theshortreview.com. Tania lives and writes in Jerusalem.
• Until Feb.1, Arc 20 is accepting submissions on the theme of identities, “the multiple identities and languages we posses and are possessed by.” You do not have to be a member of IAWE to submit writing. For details, contact editor Ed Codish at ecodish@gmail.com.
• Want to write in South Africa this June? Check out www.capewrite.com. Dr. Irvine Eidelman, co-director with novelist Jenefer Shute, used to live in Israel. Rates range from $1,000-1,700 for a one-week retreat. All prices are in Rands, so know that R7.00 = $1.00 US.
• Remember Gabi Lev from the Maaleh Hachamisha workshop? Her incredible play (in Hebrew) about her survivor parents, Shulem, will be presented on January 27th at 9 pm at the Givatayim Theatre, David Remez St. 40 (Tel. 03-7325340) and on January 28th at 9 pm at the Maabada in Jerusalem, Derech Hebron 28 (Tel.02-6244584). For details and reviews of Shulem go to www.tcj.org.il/shulem (Hebrew).
• Evan Fallenberg (www.evanfallenberg.com) is traveling around the US, reading excerpts from his beautiful book Light Fell. You can buy Light Fell at any Tzomet Sefarim outlet. Evan will again teach fiction in the Bar-Ilan writing program during the summer semester of 2008.
• In Jerusalem Hilary Milgrom, MSW, leads groups for women in midlife. One of the topics discussed is connecting with one’s inner wisdom and creativity. Tel. 02-673486
• Shifrah Devorah Witt, MFA, teaches creative writing workshops in Jerusalem. Tel. 0548018483 for details.

2. Your publications

• Jessica Apple’s wonderful essay about her grandmother appeared on nextbook.org. Hopefully, this link still works; if not, search for it on nextbook.org. Jessica is a student in Bar-Ilan’s Program.
• Gila Green, a graduate of Bar-Ilan’s Program, had a story accepted to Quality Women’s Fiction for the January 2008 issue. Her story is “The Wedding Day.”
• Faigie Heiman, a graduate of my writing workshop, published “Zaida’s Spirit: A Tribute” in the Dec. 12, 2007 issue of The Jewish Press. The essay is in tribute to Reb Menashe Gross z”l.
• I am sure you Anglo-Israelis have published more in the last month, but you did not tell me about it. Help me spread the word about where you are publishing your stories, essays and poems. Believe me, this inspires others to write and to send out their work.

3. The Writing Life

What writing life? Who has time or energy to write with going to doctors, doing blood tests, waiting for the latest virus to leave your bed, feeling like a bear in hibernation? I’ve taken to reading instead of writing and am having a wonderful time. A little Grace Paley to prepare me for old age. A little Babel to prepare me for the next war. A little Kafka to get me in the mood for dying.

In winters like these, I wish I had practised piano when I was thirteen or learned to quilt from my grandmother. Even baking would be a nice pastime, but all I know how to do is write, so when I don’t do it I feel fairly worthless.

I put in that “fairly” just to lighten the blow. The truth is, I feel totally worthless. I try to convince myself that I am a passable grandmother, a decent mother, not a bad partner, and I do my day job well. But the one talent that God gave me, writing, I neglect so easily and pray He won’t see me hiding under my pillow, chasing the last dream in which my mother was lost. If a whale would come through the dry valley below my house, I’d hide in its belly.

Just last month I was writing furiously every morning (almost) from 5–7, but how long can a girl with low iron keep up that pace before all the winter viruses in the neighborhood start talking? Word spreads and whammo, they’re all here, clamoring to get into the body with the impaired immune system.

Once I found out I wasn’t dying from an undiagnosed cancer and only suffering from winter virus, as my French homeopathic pharmacist naturopath food coach emailed me (who has energy to go see him in vibrant Tel Aviv?), I felt better.

In spring and summer there will be movies, concerts, and plays that begin at 9 pm. Hopefully, I will go to one or two.

I think of Terry Tempest Williams, the Mormon nature writer, who once said at a writers’ conference that she is a seasonal writer. This is comforting news that I quote often from Nov. 1–March 31.

Winter is for reading, cholent, pillows and poochs (Hebrew for “comforters”).
Let the men throw off the covers and open the windows, while we women bury ourselves in a warm bed.

Hope you are all feeling well and that the 120 homeopathic drops I take every day, along with the B-12, the iron, the ½ tsp. of vile magic potion diluted in water, the 2000 mg of Vit. C, etc etc will make me so strong that next month’s newsletter will be twice as long.

Warmly (yes, I’ve taken to sleeping with wool leg warmers and a fleece hat),

Judy

Chanukah 2007 Newsletter

Greetings from www.WriteInIsrael.com!
Dedicated to creating a supportive environment for English writers in Israel

Contents

1. “Let’s Talk: A Writing Retreat on Dialogue”, held Nov. 2007
2. Your publications
3. Shards
4. The Writing Life

1. “Let’s Talk: A Writing Retreat on Dialogue” with Judy Labensohn, Evan Fallenberg and Joan Leegant, Nov. 2007

Evan and I often wonder how each retreat can be better than the previous one. Again, tfu tfu, we were delighted by the response to this, our fifth writing retreat together. What made this retreat extra special was the presence of Joan Leegant, a wonderful writer, a generous teacher, a closet stand-up, and a quiet sleeper. We hope Joan will join us again at a writing retreat in Israel. We were also honored by the presence of two wonderful Danes who came especially to Israel for our retreat and hope to see them again, along with all the old-timers and newcomers. Following are some comments from emails we received from participants:

• I’m still flying, and more important, I’m writing . . . Judy Hammond
• It was so great seeing old friends and making new ones in such a stimulating atmosphere . . . Jenni Tsafrir
• Gosh, it’s only been 24 hours and I already miss everyone from the retreat! So hard to come down from that high . . . Rachel Gurevich
• I wanted to write to you this morning to say that I’m on top of the world . . . I can’t wait for the next retreat . . . I had a wonderful time and consider it a learning experience and a personal developmental 2 ½ days . . . Susan Bell
• I believe that you and Evan are doing avodat kodesh . . . No need to stress the additional bonus that we all received from Joan. . . . Bianca Raikhlin-Eisenkraft

At the last session in White Dove Hall Judy Gray, group bard, read a take-off of our retreat announcement, which was a take-off of Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants.” She called it “Hills Like White Doves.” Here is an excerpt:

“What should we write?” the student asked. She had taken out her notebook and held her pen poised in the air.
“Write pretty dialogue,” the teacher said.
“I’ve never done one,” the student said.
“No, you wouldn’t have.”
“I might have once,” the student said. She looked out the window and saw the hills like white doves.
“Use it in fiction or creative non-fiction,” the teacher said.
“You really want me too?”
“I think it’s the best thing to do. But I don’t want you to do it if you don’t really want to.”
“Do I need to use tag lines and dialect and think about syntax?”
“Well,” the teacher said, “if you don’t want to, you don’t have to.”
“Then what will we do afterwards?”
“You will compress and expand, revise and rewrite, find Anglo-Saxon words for Latinate words. It’s perfectly simple.”

You will find a selection of pictures from the retreat, and further comments as we receive them, on the Photos page of this site.

2. Your Publications

• Rachel Gurevich, freelance writer and editor from Beit Shemesh, won First Place in an essay contest. Go to www.fundsforwriters.com/gurevich.htm to read her essay. In addition to being a prize-winning essayist, Rachel is a cornucopia of information on print rights and the business of writing. See Shards for some of her tips.
• Tania Hershman, a Jerusalem writer, launched www.theshortreview.com on Nov. 1st. This site is dedicated to reviews of short story collections and anthologies. It is Tania’s attempt to give collections the attention they deserve.
• Gila Green Tal’s short story “Suspicious Objects” was accepted for publication in Skive Magazine. See www.skivemagazine.com. Gila is a graduate of the MA creative writing program at Bar-Ilan.
• Sophie Judah and Reva Mann spoke about their respective books Dropped From Heaven and The Rabbi’s Daughter: A True Story of Sex, Drugs and Orthodoxy at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco on Nov. 4th. Both first-time authors toured the United States promoting their books. Sophie is a graduate of the MA creative writing program at Bar Ilan.
• Jessica Apple from Tel Aviv published an essay on Prozac and depression in The Financial Times on Nov. 17th. Go to www.ft.com and search for “Prozac”. Her story, “One Act,” appeared in the Autumn 2007 issue of The Southern Review, along with three poems by Linda Zisquit. Linda coordinates the poetry track at Bar Ilan and Jessica is working towards her MA in the fiction track.
• Evan Fallenberg is off to the US in January to promote his book, Light Fell, published by Soho Press. For US events go to www.evanfallenberg.com/events.html. Send your friends and relatives to meet Evan. On Wed. Jan. 16th, he will be at Book Court Booksellers, 163 Court St., Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, NY. You can buy Light Fell in Israel at any Tzomet Sefarim. Do.
• Ruth Abraham published “The Circle” in a column called “Old Lives Tales” in a recent issue of The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (JAGS). Read about Ruth’s work with Alzheimer patients at www.AlzheimersArt.com.

3. Shards
All publications and classes are in English.
WriteInIsrael.com does not endorse anything, only spreads information.

• Call for submissions to Poems for the Jewish Holidays, an anthology by Judith Sokolff and Gerd Stern. Send poems about a particular holiday or life-cycle event to gerd@intermediafoundation.org by April 1, 2008.
• The Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program (MA) in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University will be accepting applications from end January–end March 2008. If you want to apply, start gathering 25-30 pages of prose or twelve poems. Visit the website for an on-line application: www.biu.ac.il/HU/en/cw.
• Carol Ungar from Telshe Stone is launching a literary ezine for Jewish women to feature creative nonfiction, short fiction, poetry and visual arts that affirm the Jewish tradition. She wants “well-crafted work that can be slightly edgy.” Email her at tzirelchana@yahoo.com.
• Shifrah Devorah Witt (Ma, MFA) teaches creative writing in Nachlaot in Jerusalem. She also does manuscript development. Call 054 801 8483 or email consciousliving@hotmail.com.
• Dara Barnat is opening private groups for writing poetry in Tel Aviv. Contact Dara at 0547 501 458.
• Lisa Katz, poet and teacher, is teaching “The Poetry of Surprise,” a poetry class/workshop at The Poetry Place near the shuk in Jerusalem. Tues. PM. For more details, call Merav, Noah, or Gilad at 02-621 4783 or 6214777.
• Carol Ungar recommends this web site: www.ducts.org, the webzine of personal stories.
• Mai-Kim Dang is looking for poetry groups in Netanya, “just a place to get together with other writers.” Email her at poppiesin.progress@yahoo.com.
• Sue (Yaffa) nee Tourkin-Komet sends this: A Jewish Playwriting Competition sponsored by the West Boca Theatre Co. of the Adolph and Rose Levis Jewish Community Center in Florida. The original play should have a theme exploring an aspect of Jewish life/culture, modern or historic. Non-musical; 8-20 minutes, no more than 6 characters. Email Sue for full details at yaffasue@netvision.net.il.
• Tia Azulay in London, my web and blog master, suggests this site for learning about degrees and professional development in creative writing in England: www.nawe.co.uk.
  She also sent me the link to Doris Lessing’s acceptance speech for her Nobel Prize for Literature, delivered Dec. 7, 2007. Get Kleenex before you click: http://books.guardian.co.uk/nobelprize/story/0,,2224068,00.html.
• Raezelle Lazar from Bat Ayin is leading a “Walk ‘n Write” on Dec. 24, 2007 and Jan 22, 2008 in Nachlaot, Jerusalem, called “Landscapes Without and Within.” Email for details: raezelle@012.net.il.
• Rachel Gurevich, who teaches on-line at www.longridgewritersgroup.com, recommends the following for writers:
  • www.FundsforWriters.com publishes two free newsletters.
  • www.woodenhorsepub.com publishes a free newsletter.
  • For contests, check out www.winningwriters.com.
  • A site for dummies like me who obey the submission rules: www.therenegadewriter.com
• Jenni Tsafrir recommends the following sites for writers:
  • www.creativewritingprompts.com
  • www.askaboutwriting.net
• For a great article on creative nonfiction, go to http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2007/12/2007120301c/careers.html.

4.The Writing Life

I’ve never been able to keep to a writing schedule for more than a week. Always, before I lead a writing retreat, I have to remind myself that I am a writer. To prove it, two weeks before the November retreat at Neve Shalom, I committed to wake up by 6 a.m. at least five times a week to work on a particular story. I knew if I didn’t write first thing in the morning, I wouldn’t write at all and if I didn’t write at all, I wasn’t a writer.

For five days I did it. By 8 a.m. I had completed my most important work of the day. My self-esteem soared.

Then house guests arrived and I caught my annual late-October cold and I was tired, lazy, sick. Call it whatever you want. I did not want to get out of bed at 5:45 a.m. It was so easy to renege on my commitment to write.

The week of writing at dawn was enough to convince me, though, of the importance of showing up regularly. I’m glad to say I have continued this practice since the retreat. Sometimes, I sit at the computer when it’s dark outside, my eyes half-open, and force myself to crawl back into my story, as if it were a warm bed. Miraculously, the story grows a page or a paragraph a day. Sometimes, I stay in bed and thank God for the freedom of choice.

At the retreat, I called the 6:15 a.m. activity I led “Showing Up.” The idea behind it was that if you can wake up and write from 6:15 – 7:30 a.m. at a retreat, you can do it in your own home. The following is what I wrote that morning:

***

I am committed to this hour of the day, the hour when the cock crows, the cat calls, birds twitter and hum, and the first fart of the morning tells the system, “Awake, awake”. A new day has dawned at Neveh Shalom/ Wahat al Salaam in all its luscious and noisy surprise.

We should awake as the sun does, slowly, steadily, and with an inevitable desire to rise, to lift ourselves up onto the arc of the day. By noon we should be fully awake, half our day behind us and half ahead. When it is dark and the sun has finished its story above us, let us close our eyes in an inevitable downward sag, eyelids resting peacefully on lower lids, as we return once again to that semi-eternal resting place called sleep.

Few want to get up early to write. It’s 6 a.m. Five women drift up to this bench from sleep—Jackie, Judy, Bianca, Carole and Susan. I motion to them to take out their pens and do as I do. I am too tired to talk. Now? they ask. Can’t I finish my coffee? Shmooz? The answer is NO. The answer is You wake up in the morning and instead of a toothbrush, you pick up your pen. They write until everyone who is coming has arrived.

At 6:15 we are six women walking in silence on the road to wakefulness in Neveh Shalom, going to Beit HaDumia, the House of Silence. Six women are walking in silence on a road of new houses. Inside there are no lights in the kitchens, no smells of pita or toast. The only noise is the barking of the family dog at each house, warning us not to get too close. We don’t. The air is cool on my neck where the sweater does not reach. I take in the beauty of this November morning and after five minutes, I cry for so much beauty.

Then I wonder if I should have turned left at the first turn. I obsess about this until we arrive at the second turn. Once we make the turn I see the familiar bougainvillea and pebble path and I know we are not lost. My pace slows as we enter a friendship circle of pines and I wonder if anyone will choose to stay here to write. But no, they follow me. They trust their leader like they trust their pens. She will never lead them astray. If she gets lost and wanders aimlessly, she will always find her way home, enjoying each line of the journey.

The dense, dark pines open to a vista of the coastal plain. A pancake cloud covers the intersection at Latroun. Here is the heart of Israel spread out before us, so small and vulnerable from this hillock in the Judean lowlands. I can hold Israel in the palm of my hand. That is what I sought when I came here forty years ago—a small country, one whose roads I could master, trails I could follow, towns I could learn, a country small enough to hold in my hands and bring close to my heart, as I do now in this silent moment, full of early morning light, a moment that feels sacred.

We reach Beit HaDumia—a mushroom shaped structure with white stucco on the outside and white stucco inside. We are so full of words in our silence we all sit down to write on the floor, a stool, or a white plastic chair. We are five women sitting in silence in a house built for silence. (Susan is sitting outside.) We are all writing, pens racing along lines. The woodpecker outside is doing what a woodpecker must. The dogs in the distance protect their owners. The sun, in its silence, climbs up the sky.

And we, the guardians of words, write.

***

May the festival of lights bring you much light.

Warmly,
Judy

September/Tishrei 2007 Newsletter

Greetings from www.WriteInIsrael.com!

Contents

1. My Fall Classes and Nov. Writing Retreat (with Evan)
2. Your Publications
3. Our Shards
4. The Writing Life

1. My Fall Classes and November Writing Retreat

• Wednesdays, 4:30 – 6:30 Beginning to Write
  From October 24th I will conduct a creative writing class for beginning writers. We will meet for twelve sessions at my home in Moshav Beit Zayit, ten minutes west of Jerusalem. I will focus on process and craft, as opposed to workshopping original work. The goal of the class is to get you writing, to help you discover your voice and subject matter, and to learn how to learn from published stories and essays.
  The cost is NIS 1200, payable in four installments.
  To register, email labensohnjudy@hotmail.com
• Every other Friday, 10:45 – 12:45 Writing Workshop
  This class, from Oct. 26th, provides a framework for writers doing rewrites of chapters, stories, essays or pieces in search of a genre. If you know how to take intelligent, constructive criticism, this group is for you. We will meet at my home in Moshav Beit Zayit, ten minutes west of Jerusaelm.
  The cost is NIS 700 for seven sessions through Jan. 18th.
  To register, email labensohnjudy@hotmail.com
• “Talk to Me,” a writing retreat on dialogue with Evan Fallenberg and Judy Labensohn.
  Nov. 14-16, 2007 at Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam. There are still a few places available. For complete details and registration, see the Talk To Me Dialogue Retreat Registration Form.

I will be in the United States until Oct. 15th, but I have daily access to email.

2. Your Publications

When Anglo writers in Israel read about your publication successes, they become inspired to submit their own writing for publication. Please continue to send me your good news so I can spread the word. In this way we can create a community of Anglo writers in Israel.

• Gila (Green) Tal’s story “Half Sisters” was accepted for publication by Pilot Pocket Books, Toronto. Gila, originally from Ottawa, is a graduate of the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University. The pocket book is due out in November.
• Sarah Kreimer, who has participated in my Jerusalem writing workshop for three years, has landed a New York agent for her memoir, Vision and Division in Israel: My Journey along the Seam. I look forward to being able to tell you when Sarah’s agent sells the book to a publisher.
• Prof. Ada Aharoni has two poems published in Peace, Justice, and Jews, July 2007. The editors are Murray Polner and Stefan Merken. A second edition of her poetry book You and I is available via www.iflac.com/ada
• Rachel Gurevich of Beit Shemesh is a winner. Her poem “I Know Kindness” won 1st place in the www.momwriters.com annual anniversary poetry contest. Her short story “One More Day, One More Chance,” won an honorable mention in WritersWeekly’s 24-hour short story contest. Rachel also had an essay published under a pseudonym at www.CommonTies.com
• Ruth Mason continues her monthly column in “In Jerusalem,” called “Life in the 50’s.” For back columns, email Ruth at ruthm_2001@yahoo.com
• Jeffrey Green’s story “In Vincoli” appeared on the online Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture in the July 2007 issue.
• Reva Mann, whom I mentored during the first year of her writing what became The Rabbi’s Daughter: A True Story of Sex, Drugs, and Orthodoxy, has been enjoying fame in Great Britain. Articles about Reva and her book, published by Hodder and Stoughton, have appeared in all major magazines and newspapers in England. On July 29th her photo appeared on the cover of The Sunday Times Magazine, followed by a 6-page spread. In October, the book will be released by Random House in the US. Currently, Reva is at work on her second book.

3. Our Shards

• In August, Judith ben Susan from Mevasseret Zion participated in a writing course at Lumb Bank, Yorkshire sponsored by the famed Arvon Foundation in England. Her review is mixed: “The experience was a memorable one and I enjoyed it very much although I was dissatisfied with the level of the tutors and I was not alone in that… Perhaps I will give it another go next year. I did not do much writing, I have to say. I feel that the course was not the right one for me. But on re-reading the blurb, I could certainly understand why I thought it was suitable…. I thoroughly enjoyed the week and meeting the wonderful talented people.”
• Chana Coggan in Maaleh Adumim told me about these fabulous web sites: www.persimmontree.org — a literary magazine written by women over 60, and www.storyscapejournal.com
• Call for submissions:
  • Ezrat Avot is seeking articles (250-800 words), poetry and photographs for a new English-language monthly e-magazine, “Israel Senior Life.” Visit www.ezratavot.org for details.
  • Babel, an online journal promoting freedom of speech, seeks poems, stories, and essays on identity and culture. Visit www.icorn.org for details and click the links under “babel” on the right.
  • Talia in Jerusalem is looking for one-page plays about Judaism or Israel for the One-Page Play Festival during Channukah. Email: talia.rach@gmail.com
• The Faculty of Management at Tel Aviv University is looking for an instructor for an English-language undergraduate course on Business Communications. Among topics typically covered in such a course: Preparing resumes, interviewing, writing business letters, making effective presentations. Contact person: Prof. Simon Benninga, benninga@post.tau.ac.il.

4. The Writing Life

Often our craft and our imagination are out of sync. I may have a wonderful story to tell, but have not yet developed the skills with which to tell it. Conversely, I may have skills, but lack the emotional maturity, depth and range to utilize the story to its fullest. So many elements must fall in place at the same time for a piece of writing to succeed on all levels. No wonder Bobbie Ann Mason suggests waiting twenty years before sending out our work.

Nonetheless, we do send out our poems, stories and essays because the goal of writing is to communicate. A nice thing happened to me last month. It’s called “the best case scenario for an emerging writer,” which I still am. (The cocoon, from which I emerge, you understand, is made of steel, so emerging is a difficult, painful process.) This is the nice thing: I received an email from an agent who had read my essay in The Southwest Review. He liked it and wanted to see more of my writing. The agent and I have exchanged emails and one day I may meet him. He may or may not represent me, but just receiving his email of encouragement helped me break through another inch of the steel cocoon. The email also vindicated my attempts to publish in high-quality literary magazines. Agents scout these journals. Don’t keep your writing in your drawers, closet, or computer. Put it into the world (she wrote, as a way to nudge herself.)

I am writing this newsletter from a hotel room in Pittsburgh and a family room in Cleveland. During my travels, I have met the editors of Creative Nonfiction and the Michigan Quarterly Review, journals that have published my work. I wanted to say Thank you to these two gentlemen who taught me that literary essays from Israel can enjoy a wider readership than we might suspect.

I send you greetings from the land of colored leaves and autumn scents that penetrate the emigrant soul.

Shana tova. May your blessings be as varied and abundant as the colors on the trees in northeastern Ohio.

Warmly,
Judy

Summer/Kayitz 2007 Newsletter

Contents

1. Upcoming Poetry Reading
2. Talk To Me —The Retreat
3. Your Publications
4. My Fall Teaching Schedule
5. Shards
6. The Writing Life—an essay by David Grossman

Dear Friends,

1. Upcoming Poetry Reading

August 2, 2007 in Jerusalem: Poets who earned their MA from the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University will give a reading at Tmol Shilshom Literary Café on Yoel Solomon Street in downtown Jerusalem. Everyone is invited at 7 PM.

2. Talk To Me —The Retreat

Talk To Me: A Writing Retreat on Dialogue with Judy Labensohn and Evan Fallenberg. Wednesday, Nov. 14, 9:00 a.m.—Friday, Nov. 16th, noon, 2007 at Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam. For complete details and registration, see the Talk To Me Dialogue Retreat Registration Form. Registration closes October 10, 2007.

3. Your Publications

When Anglo writers in Israel read about your publication successes, it inspires them to write and send out their work. Please, send me your good news, so I can spread the word.

• Haim Watzman’s book A Crack in the Earth: A Journey Up Israel’s Rift Valley was recently published by Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. This is Jerusalemite Watzman’s second book with FSG. Find out more at www.haimwatzman.com
• Dorit Sasson from Kibbutz Sde Nehemiya recently published her first piece of fiction. “The Made Officer” appeared in Art and Prose Magazine. Her first online publication appeared on The Raving Dove. You can read “Going Home” in the summer edition at www.ravingdove.org
• Gila Green, a graduate of the Bar-Ilan writing program, is publishing another story from her collection White Zion. “The End of Jewish Jerusalem” appears in the July issue of Kunapipi, an Australian journal of post-colonial literature. Gila lives in Beit Shemesh.
• Jerusalem-based writer Judy Lash Balint has a new book. Jerusalem Diaries II: What’s Really Happening in Israel (Xulon Press) is available at Pomeranz Books and Shorashim in Jerusalem or from www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com
• Esther Susan Heller of Safad has published her first book—an e-book called Six Ways to Turn Your Good Writing into Great Writing. It is based on sixteen years of teaching creative writing. Learn more at www.creativesolutionspress.com/creativewriting

A huge Mazal Tov to all those writers who persist, persist, and persist.

4. My Fall Teaching Schedule

• Every other Friday morning I will host a small group of committed writers at my home in Moshav Beit Zayit to workshop short stories, essays, chapters of books, or pieces in search of a genre. This is for writers who have experience in rewriting.
  We will meet for seven sessions from 10:45–12:45.
  The cost is NIS 700, payable in two payments. The first meeting will be Oct. 26th, not on the 19th as previously published.
  If you are interested in joining, please email me at labensohnjudy@hotmail.com.
• On Wednesday afternoons from 4:30–6:30 I will teach a creative writing class in Jerusalem. This class is geared to emerging writers who want a framework to help them keep writing. The emphasis will be on the elements of good writing, learning to use other writers as inspiration, the writing process, and producing first drafts. The goal is to get you writing, to help you identify genres, to discover your strengths, your voice, and your pace, to inspire and encourage.
  We will meet for twelve sessions from Oct. 24, 2007 thru Jan. 23, 2008 (no classes on Nov. 14 and Dec. 5). The cost of the Wednesday class is NIS 1,200, payable in three checks made out to Yeul Sachir for NIS 400 each and dated Nov. 1, Dec. 1 and Jan. 1. Send checks to Judy Labensohn, POBox 15306 Moshav Beit Zayit, 90815. Include name, address, phone numbers and email. Hopefully, the class will meet in Beit Hakerem, but this is not final yet. Questions via email: labensohnjudy@hotmail.com

2. Shards

• If you’re a mother and a writer, check out www.literarymama.com
• The deadline for the Fifth Annual Fiction Competition of Lilith Magazine is Sept. 30, 2007. If you have a great story that does not exceed 3,000 words, go to www.lilith.org/writers.htm for submission instructions.
• Tzippi Moss of Jerusalem is offering a summer special for new clients who commit to four coaching sessions either via phone, Skype, or in person. She has experience coaching creative people past their fears and blocks. Contact her at tzippi.moss@yahoo.com
• If you write for teens, Yaffa in Jerusalem would like to meet you to form a support group. Affay612@yahoo.com
• Joan Leegant, who will be coming from Harvard to teach the fiction workshop at Bar-Ilan during the Fall semester, is looking for a three-room, furnished apt. to rent in Tel Aviv from Oct. 1–Jan. 31. If you or anyone you know can help her, please email Joan at Leegant@rcn.com
• Evan Fallenberg will be teaching the summer workshop at Bar-Ilan, which begins on August 16th. The workshops at Bar-Ilan are only open to those registered for the MA program with a creative thesis. Applications for the 2008-09 academic year will be accepted from Feb. 1, 2008.
• If you suffer from memory loss or have a loved one who suffers, think about supporting Melabev by either joining the 2007 Negev Walkathon (Nov. 27-29) or sponsoring a walker. All proceeds go to a therapeutic kitchen and dining area in the new Melabev Center in Shaarei Zedek Hospital, Jerusalem. Full details on the Walkathon at www.friendsofmelabev.com and on Melabev at www.melabev.org. I view any donation to Melabev as personal insurance.
• Sarah Shapiro of Jerusalem is editing another edition of her famed anthology Our Lives (Targum/Feldheim). She wants to consider your personal stories, poems and essays for inclusion in the upcoming anthology. Email her at sarahkit@netvision.net.il. In the subject line, write ANTHOLOGY.
• The deadline for the 2007 Moment-Karma Short Fiction Contest is July 30, 2007 (postmark). For details, go to: http://www.momentmag.com/events/07SS-Guidelines.html

5. The Writing Life

Being a writer in Israel provides inherent challenges. David Grossman describes them beautifully in “Writing in the Dark.” You can access this essay/speech at:

http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/1490/prmID/918

I need to be in the US for an extended visit until after Sukkot, so this may be the last newsletter for a few months. Send me your publication news, anyway, and keep writing and submitting your stories, poems, essays, and book proposals. Enjoy the summer, wherever you are; pray for a compassionate heart; and don’t forget to stretch after forty-five minutes of sitting.

With love,

Judy
www.writeinisrael.com

Iyar/May 2007 Newsletter

Contents

1. May events in Israel and general info.
2. Interesting web sites and events for writers
3. Your publications
4. My Jewish Writing Life

1. May events in Israel

On May 19th from 5-6:30 Emily Budick from the Hebrew University will deliver a lecture: “In this country but in another language: The extra-territoriality of American Jewish Fiction.” Yakar Synagogue, Rehov HaLamedHey, Old Katamon, Jerusalem.

On May 20th at 6 PM. Aharon Appelfeld will read a chapter from All Whom I Have Loved: A Novel at the Dedication Ceremony of the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University. If you want to attend, please email me.

If you are interested in writing Jewish stories, call me at +972 (0)2 570 9744. I am organizing a highly informal writing group on Friday mornings from 10 – 12 to create a course on Jewish writing that I will teach after Sukkot in Jerusalem. Space is limited. The first session is May 11th.

I am trying to stay young, so I am going to become a jogger, no, I mean a blogger. Anything is better than jogging, right? I hope I will master blogging. I never mastered the Video and I have become as low tech as you can get without living in a teepee. This is my blog address http://judylabensohn.wordpress.com/. You can find past newsletters there from Dec. 2007, should you want to reread them some morning at 3:30 when you can’t sleep. It could be that next month I will be so technologically savvy that I will send you a one-sentence email telling you to check my blog for the June newsletter.

Save the Date: on June 18th at 4:30, American mystery writer Michael Wiley will give a writing workshop in Jerusalem at the American Center, entitled “Making a Scene in Fiction: Writing as Striptease.” More details in the June newsletter.

For an introductory 2 ½ hour creativity workshop, call Margalit Jacobs, Creative Arts Therapist and Coach, Tel. +972 (0)2 671 8364 and leave a message.

Joan Leegant, author of the prize-winning story collection, An Hour in Paradise, is going to be teaching during the Fall 2007 semester in the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan. If any of you are thinking about devoting more time to your writing, now is the time to apply to Bar-Ilan. Go to the web site for an on-line application. http://www.biu.ac.il/HU/en/home/cw/

2. Interesting web sites and events

http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/WEBSITE/WWW/WEBPAGES/helpInfo.php?ID=7Yonatan Udren sent us this: From the above site you can purchase books in England, which are shipped free of charge to Israel.

If you self-published a book, why don’t you enter it in the DIY (Do It Yourself) Book Festival on October 20, 2007 in Los Angeles? For details, visit www.DIYConvention.com and click Events.

Thanks to Channa in Maaleh Adumim for sending this great blog for anyone struggling with writing a novel.

Michael Loftus sent us this worthwhile site for anyone who wants to submit an article to a Jewish newspaper in the US: American Jewish Press Association list of editors of Jewish newspapers: www.ajpa.org/memberdirectory.php

Check out http://iwwg.org/index.php?page=851 for The International Women’s Writing Guild’s “Remember the Magic” summer writing conference at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, June 15-24 (or parts thereof). Sharon Bachar went a few times and swears these are great seminars.

Check out www.bmj.org.il

Esther Hecht says www.anotherealm.com/preditors/ is a wonderful guide to publishers and writing services for serious writers.

I know some of you are going to attend a writing workshop abroad this summer. After the experience, send me a short description so I can spread the word.

3. Your Publications

Reuven Goldfarb from Safed published “How’s Your Hebrew? My Life in Ulpan” in The National Jewish Post and Opinion on February 14th. He also had an Op-Ed piece in The Jerusalem Post on April 5th.

Please send me your publication acceptances. More than 300 Anglo writers in Israel want to hear about your success.

4. My Jewish Writing Life

Whoever attended the conference Kisufim in Jerusalem on April 16-18 could not help wonder if he or she is a Jewish writer. Apparently, it’s not enough to be a Jew who writes to be considered a Jewish writer. Zadie Smith’s second novel The Autograph Man, won the 2003 Jewish Quarterly Literary Prize for Fiction and she’s not even Jewish. If you feel like an outsider, in exile, and/or alienated, this may help you qualify to be called a Jewish writer. If you do not feel in exile, even if you live in Montreal, this too, is acceptable, because People who have The Book need never feel in exile.

Though only People who have The Language can be the deepest Jewish writers, because their words, like Agnon’s, resonate back to The Book, you can still be a Jewish Writer if you write in Serbian and live in Calgary.

If you wander incessantly, this can help define you as a Jewish writer.
If you have an erotic attachment to the writers of the Torah, do not call a psychologist. You are simply on your way to becoming a Jewish writer.

As you can see, there is no one definition of a Jewish writer, so pick your own, if you care enough.

After the Conference, I read through my collection of stories and realized many of them echo back to earlier Jewish texts. I created a definition of a Jewish writer that defines me: A Jewish writer is one whose writing is in dialogue with Jewish texts.
I plan to push this definition, build a course around it, and thereby claim legitimacy as a Jewish writer.

May you all become the writer you want to become, Jewish or non.

For a delightful take on Jewish writing, see a prose poem by Hugh Behm-Steinberg at http://www.zeek.net/702poetry/

Benediction for May:

May you all be delighted by the smell of roses and sweet peas.
May you decide to start a new project and follow through.
May you decide to finish an old project and follow through.
May all your rejection letters turn into acceptances.

Warm wishes,
Judy

Nisan/Pesach 2007 Newsletter

Contents

1. April events in Israel
2. Interesting web sites for writers
3. Publications, a plethora
4. Deadline and live wires
5. The Writing Life

Dear Friends,

1. April events in Israel

• “To Be a Jewish Writer,” an international conference, will be held at Beit Avi Chai, Jerusalem, April 16-19. See www.kisufim.org for details.
• On Friday, April 27th, I will lead a half-day Hike ‘n Write at Neot Kedumim, the Biblical Landscape Reserve, near Modi’in. This is an opportunity for those who once fell in love with a place to reconnect with that love and place. We will use biblical quotes and landscapes as inspiration for writing exercises. We will visit the “Jericho Oasis,” climb the “Hill of Milk and Honey,” sit in the shade of “Isaiah’s Vineyard,” and explore the “Garden of the Seven Species.” Time: from 8:30 to 1-ish.; Cost: NIS 165. (Does not include NIS 25 entrance fee) Pre-registration a must — limited space. Send your check, made out to Yeul Sachir, to Judy Labensohn, POBox 15306, Moshav Beit Zayit, 90815. I will send you more details.

2. Interesting web sites for writers

• For writers who love baseball: Get ready for the opening day of the premier season of the Israel Baseball League. http://israelbaseballleague.com/about/stadiuminfo/
• Esther Hecht swears these are great sites for finding an agent: http://www.agentquery.com/writer_sa.aspx
  http://www.aar-online.org/mc/page.do?sitePageId=9693
• The following article gives you a list of agents looking for writers:
  http://www.writersdigest.com/articles/sambuchino_secret_agents.asp
• Max Apple, an American Jewish writer, read his essay on being a Jewish writer to the Bar-Ilan fiction class on March 6. Read “The Jew as Writer/ The Writer as Jew” at:
  http://www2.jewishculture.org/publications/wtjf/publications_wtjf_apple.html
• An interesting read about Muslim creative writing in English: www.Qalamonline.com
• For a list of literary magazines and presses in the USA: http://www.clmp.org/directory/index.php

3. Publications, a plethora

• Dropped from Heaven, a collection of stories by Sophie Judah of Hod Hasharon, published by Random House, is now on sale in America. Sophie’s book is based on her MA thesis in fiction from Bar-Ilan.
• Gerry Berman’s play, “Explostion at Geha Junction” was chosen to be read at the 15th Annual Last Frontier Theatre/Play Conference in Valdez, Alaska, June 22-30, 2007. Gerry lives in Jerusalem and Alaska.
• Ruth Fogelman’s poem “Rachel’s Eulogy for Her Grandmother” won First Place in the Reuben Rose Poetry Competition. The poem was part of her MA thesis in poetry from Bar-Ilan. To read this and more, visit http://www.geocities.com/jerusalemlives Ruth lives in the Old City of Jerusalem.
• Laurie Bisberg’s “Forever Slim” will appear in the March-April issue of the ESRA Magazine, which is all about food. The svelte writer lives in Haifa.
• Sue Tourkin-Komet, Jerusalem, has poems and essays forthcoming in Soul Fountain, Jewish Bible Quarterly, Matrix, and Heartbeats from Heaven, the Voices Israel Poetry Anthology.
• Susan Sachs, Beit Shemesh, published a story, “A Day Like All Days,” in the annual Studies in American Jewish Literature.
• Faigie Heiman, Jerusalem, had an op-ed in jewishpress.com on Feb. 28, 2007.
• Eva Eliav’s poems are forthcoming in Stand in 2007.
• “Explosion,” the opening story in my collection, Stories from Bethlehem Road, will appear in the June issue of Hadassah Magazine.

Mazal tov to all writers who complete a project, send it off, and live to see it accepted. Keep sending me your acceptances.

4. Deadline and live wires

• Mima’amakin, a Journal of Artistic Exploration of the Jewish Religious Experience is seeking submissions until May 1st: http://www.mimaamakim.org/sub2007.com
• Applications are now being accepted for the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University. The program begins on August 16, 2007. http://www.biu.ac.il/HU/en/home/cw/htm
• Robert McKee’s Story Seminar is a world-class event. The next one is in London, April 27-29, 2007. http://www.mckeestory.com
• Varda Branfman, Sarah Shapiro, and Roberta Chester from Israel and Maine will be leading a kosher, vegetarian writing retreat for women in Bar Harbor, Maine. The one week retreat begins on Sunday, May 27, 2007. Visit www.shorepathcottage.com for inviting details.
• For a non-kosher, one-week writing retreat on a 50 foot cruising yacht called “Enchantment,” sailing north of Vancouver, BC on July 24, 2007, write to drkurtz@MAC.COM.

There are so many beautiful places in the world to write. Make your desk one of them.

5. The Writing Life

As a teacher I am privy to writers’ stories. I want to share some with you, because they are inspiring.

A woman joined a writing group because she had always wanted to write, but never got around to it. How do I start? What do I write about? Who cares? After a few months in a weekly class, she shared her delight. “It’s like magic,” she said. “I sit down to type and these words come out and I don’t know where they come from.” Her innocence and enthusiasm awed and silenced the group. This woman, over eighty, talked about writing as if she had fallen in love.

Another woman joined a group because twelve years earlier someone had told her she should try creative writing. This woman let the idea percolate and finally, after an almost two hour drive, made it to the first of a four-session class. Unfortunately, her work prevented her from coming to the second session. I don’t know what prevented her from attending the third and fourth sessions, but I do know that this woman will write. Once the decision erupts, one slowly overcomes all obstacles.

Another woman, a mother of nine, was on the way to a Sunday retreat and her car broke down on Highway Six. Furious, she called her husband to pick her up, left her car on the road, and arrived at the retreat, panting, an hour late. “I feel I crash-learned about five years in as many hours and my smugness turned to doubt and then to alarm,” she wrote me afterwards. “Much traumatized, I spent Monday in a daze, getting my car out of a faraway garage.” She avoided eye contact with her computer and a particular wall cupboard in her home that housed clothes from every daughter for every season in all sizes. On Tuesday, she planned to reorganize the cupboard. On Wednesday, she did it. A week after the retreat, she began to rewrite.

A young man finishing his MFA in the States wrote to ask me how I began teaching. As an aside in his email, he wrote the following about my essay on the get ceremony that he had read in In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction. “I am Presbyterian, married, and live in Atlanta, GA, yet the beauty and poignancy of your Jewish divorce ritual and experience spoke volumes to me… Thanks for sharing your talent with the world.” When I wrote that essay, I wasn’t thinking about the world. I was only thinking about how to describe a complex world of ritual and emotion. Every week, when I sit with Anglo-Israeli writers, we wonder if our unique experiences will resonate with people who don’t know the difference between a get and a gat. This young man’s letter assured me that our experiences will resonate, as long as we reveal the crux of the story that lies beyond the Jerusalem Rabbinate and the archaeological park, a place we share with readers worldwide: it is the human heart.

Chag sameach,

Judy

Adar 2007 Newsletter

Contents

1. New Hat and Required Reading
2. New Event
3. Publication News
4. Apology
5. Tips and Tidbits. Nu?
6. My Renewed Writing Life

Dear Friends,

1. New Hat and Required Reading

I have a new hat this Purim. It crowns me the Coordinator of the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar Ilan University. Shaindy, founding director of the creative writing program, died too young last year. She left a vision of a vibrant Jewish writing center in Israel, a vision I look forward to furthering.

The Program enables Anglo-Israeli writers, as well as students from abroad, to earn an MA in English with a creative thesis in either fiction or poetry. Applications are now being accepted for the 2007-08 academic year, which begins in mid-August. You can access an application online at http://www.biu.ac.il/HU/en/home/cw

Please tell your nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles, and all your cousins around the world about the program.
(Know that the web site is being renewed.)

Required Reading: If you want to get accepted to any competitive writing program or publish anywhere, I suggest you read an article by Diana Hume George on copyediting. You can find it at http://www.creativenonfiction.org/brevity/craft/craft_copyedit.htm

2. New Event (preceded by reports of the Old Events)

• Nine fearless writers met at Kibbutz Tzuba on Jan. 28th to write about their bodies. During the break, we did the Hokey Pokey, which revved up the writing juices.
• For the first time in her life, Sarita Perel has begun to write about her 50-year “relationship” with arthritis.
• A small group of motivated writers met at my home in Beit Zayit on Feb. 11th to workshop their personal essays. This was an amazing day of fierce learning and sensitive, writerly intimacy.
• My March class at Beit Berl College still has room for a few more students. It begins this Friday, March 2nd. If you are stuck and not writing, come. Email: lilish@beitberl.ac.il
• New Event: On Friday, April 27th, I will lead a Hike ‘n Write at Neot Kedumim. (8:30 – 1 p.m.) This is a rare opportunity to combine your love of walking in biblical landscapes with your love of writing. Details in the next newsletter, but do save the date.

3. Publication News

• Eva Eliav’s story, “In a Roman Pension,” was published in the winter issue of Quality Women’s Fiction, a bi-annual American magazine by and about women.
• Gila Tal-Green http://gilatal.blogspot.com/ who graduated from the Bar Ilan Creative Writing Program in 2006, had a short story, “Brass Knuckles,” accepted for the March, 2007 issue of Fiction Magazine. The story is from her thesis collection called White Zion. The title story from White Zion will appear in Saranac Review in August, 2007. Gila just gave birth to her fifth child on Feb. 23rd.
• Devorah (Debbie) Shinan, published “Kosher Under Katyushas” in the Winter, 2007 online edition of The Kosher Spirit.

Keep sending me those publication acceptances. Mazal tov to all.

4. New Apology

Evan Fallenberg and I had hoped to inspire you with another writing retreat in May, but we have decided to put it off for the time being. We offer you, our former and future participants, sincere apologies for disappointing you this spring.

5. Tips and Tidbits. Nu?

• If you have an idea for an article for the Jerusalem Post Metro section, contact Editor Daniel Ben-Tal at danielbe@netvision.net.il He is always looking for good writers with creative ideas.
• If you plan to be in New England in July, stop in at the New York State Summer Writers Institute, July 3-28, held at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY. You can enroll for either a 2 or 4 week session. If you have only a night in the area, there are free, public readings. See www.albany.edu/writers-inst/nysswi.hyml
• If you are going to Old England this summer, plan on a week’s writing retreat at the Arvon Foundation for Writing. Visit www.arvonfoundation.org
• If you want to receive more writing newsletters, try www.greatwriting.co.uk and
  http://www.writersdigest.com/specialoffers.asp?NLfriend1
• If you are in Jerusalem on Tuesday, May 1, 2007, don’t miss The Writer’s Journey Seminar, organized by Leah Kotkes. For details and registration, email lifework@012.net.il
• Jbooks.com asked some of America’s top literary critics to forecast the next string of Jewish-American classics. High on the list is Kagan’s Superfecta and Other Stories. Author Allen Hoffman is the writer-in-residence at the Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar Ilan.

6. My Renewed Writing Life

Perhaps, like me, you went through four packs of tissues in February, blowing your nose, coughing, blowing more, while all the time thinking you were dying. When the flu hits, it depresses the body and then the soul. I was sure my weakness was due to some other silent, insidious visitor, like mono or blood cancer. I had gotten a flu shot, after all, exercised daily (well, almost daily), ate organic, brown rice. But whatever hit me in Feb. paid no heed to my efforts to be healthy. Even walking to the computer, let alone writing, was a challenge.

As the days passed and no thoughts entered my head other than how to empty my overflowing waste baskets, I feared never writing again. I imagined being struck by something worse than mono or cancer: Old Age. All this tiredness, it reminded me of my grandmother, who rarely moved from her chair by the window. I was becoming a prone version of her. When I did sit up, I began to knit, a sure sign of Old Age.

Salvation came in the form of Vitamin C – 2,000 mg. a day (1,000 with breakfast and 1,000 with lunch). Within the week, I was walking next to the cesspool in the Motza Valley, so big we call it a lake, and smelling the almond blossoms to counter the stench of sewage. Each day I walked a little more. Bedtime advanced from 7 PM to 10:30. I was getting healthy.

One morning I awoke with an idea for an essay. Ahhh, the blood was again flowing to the muscle in my brain that controls imagination. Once again, as in days of old, I awoke at 4 a.m. and wrote in my mind, that glorious mental exercise which precedes all my written activity. To transcribe that perfect essay, though, onto the computer screen, felt like too big an effort. I would have to wait until all my strength returned.

It’s returning slowly, just as yours is too, if you were struck with the flu this month. I can envision a new writing life and I hope you can too. The gift does not desert us so easily, especially if we make room for it. Now that my waste baskets are emptied of tissues, there is space for first drafts.

May March be a month of blessings for us all, a month of health and blooming. May all our transformations during Adar be for the good.

Warm regards,

Judy

Shvat 2007 Newsletter

Contents

1. Retreat, Workshop, Class
2. Publication Opportunity
3. Publication News
4. Come to the Fair
5. Good web sites
6. The Writing Life (from a Nobel Prize winner)

Dear Friends,

1. Retreat, Workshop, Class

• Sherri Mandel is a writer and author of The Blessing of a Broken Heart, which won the National Jewish Book Award in 2004. She is founder of the Koby Mandell Foundation Mother’s Healing Retreat that runs programs for women who have lost children and spouses in terror attacks and the second Lebanon war. On Monday, February 12th, 2007, Sherri will co-lead a half-day creative writing and arts retreat in Jerusalem. Participation fees are tax deductible and will provide vital support for the Foundation’s important work. For information about the Foundation, visit www.kobymandell.org/foundation.htm. For information and registration for the Feb. 12th writing and arts event, email sara@kobymandell.org Going to this retreat is a wonderful way for you to do a mitzvah while spending a creative morning.
• On Sunday, Feb. 11, 2007 a group from my Personal Essay Retreat and from the Writing About the Body Retreat (Jan. 28, ‘07) will convene at my home in Beit Zayit for a day of workshopping their personal essays. I’m excited.
• On Friday mornings, March 2, 9, 16, and 23, 2007, I will teach a 3-hour class for those who want to neutralize their inner critics and discover the magic of creative writing. The series is being organized by Beit Berl College, Kfar Saba. For details and registration, email Lili at lilish@beitberl.ac.il or Tel. 09-7476353.

2. Publication Opportunity

A new English language magazine is being developed for the frum world in Israel. The editors are looking for fiction, personal narrative, essays, poetry, “or any transporting work that sweeps the reader up into the writer’s world.” Up to 5,000 words. Query or send submissions to avmo@att.net

3. Publication News

Michigan Quarterly Review has accepted my essay from Diving Into Mount Zion for its Summer, 2007 issue. I am particularly pleased about this acceptance, since I graduated from the University of Michigan forty years ago.

4. Come to the Fair

The 23rd Jerusalem International Book Fair will be held at Binyanei Ha’ooma from Sunday evening, Feb. 18th until Friday, Feb. 23, at 1 p.m.. The Israel Association of Writers in English (IAWE) will have its own table to sell books written by its members, so look for it. Details about the fair at www.jerusalembookfair.com

5. Good web sites

• www.poynter.org This site is run by the Poynter Institute for Journalists in St. Petersburg, Florida. I read an excellent interview there with Walt Harrington called “How Memories Become Memoirs.” You can access it at www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=7493
• www.jbooks.com – the online Jewish book community. Steve Stern, who taught one semester in the writing program at Bar Ilan, has written a wonderful essay entitled “Memories of Amnesia – or – The Persistence of Folklore” for jbooks. You can read it at www.jbooks.com/interviews/index/IP_Stern_Folklore.htm

6. The Writing Life

“My Father’s Suitcase,” a personal essay by Orhan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, appeared in the Dec. 25, 2006 / Jan. 1, 2007 issue of The New Yorker. Hopefully, I will not be arrested for quoting some of the essay below.

“A writer is someone who spends years patiently trying to discover the second being inside him, and the world that makes him who he is. When I speak of writing, the image that comes first to my mind is not a novel, a poem, or a literary tradition; it is the person who shuts himself up in a room, sits down at a table, and, alone, turns inward. Amid his shadows, he builds a new world with words. This man – or this woman – may use a typewriter, or profit from the ease of a computer, or write with a pen on paper, as I do. As he writes, he may drink tea or coffee, or smoke cigarettes. From time to time, he may rise from his table to look out the window at the children playing in the street, or, if he is lucky, at trees and a view, or even at a black wall. He may write poems, or plays, or novels, as I do. But all these differences arise only after the crucial task is complete – after he has sat down at the table and patiently turned inward. To write is to transform that inward gaze into words, to study the worlds into which we pass when we retire into ourselves, and to do so with patience, obstinacy, and joy.” . . .

“The writer’s secret is not inspiration – for it is never clear where that comes from – but stubbornness, endurance. The lovely Turkish expression “to dig a well with a needle” seems to me to have been invented with writers in mind.” . . .

“Patience and toil are not enough: first, we must feel compelled to escape crowds, company, the stuff of ordinary life, and shut ourselves up in a room. . . .

“The writer who shuts himself up in a room and goes on a journey inside himself, will, over the years, discover literature’s eternal rule: he must have the artistry to tell his own stories as if they were other people’s stories, and to tell other people’s stories as if they were his own, for that is what literature is.”

I wish you all a Happy Tu B’Shvat and hope you leave your rooms long enough to smell the blooming almond trees. Send me your publication news, so I can share it with others in Israel who write from left to right.

Warm regards on a cold day,

Judy

Tevet 2007 Newsletter

Contents

1. January 28th Writing Retreat
2. The new www.WriteInIsrael
3. Jane Doe Buys a Challah
4. Publication news
5. Miscellaneous
6. Interesting web sites
7. My Writing Life: On Rejection

Dear Friends,

1. Writing About the Body

Response to the Dec. 24th one-day writing retreat on the personal essay was so positive that I am offering another one-day retreat at Kibbutz Tzuba. On Sunday, January 28, 2007 we will gather from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. to write about the body (only those who have one.) For details and registration, go to my new web site www.WriteInIsrael.com Cyberspace is boundless, apparently, but space at the retreat is limited, so register early.

2. The new www.WriteInIsrael.com

I loved working with Tia Azulay to create my new web site. What you see today is only the beginning. I hope to turn the Resources page into a true resource for Anglo-Israeli writers. If you published a book in 2006 (or forthcoming in ‘07, ‘08) or if you are teaching creative writing somewhere in Israel, send me your web information and I will create links to your sites.

3. Jane Doe Buys a Challah and Other Stories

An anthology of 33 short stories by Anglo writers in Israel, published by Ang-Lit Press, had its coming out party at Beit HaTefutsot on December 29th. It was wonderful to see all the proud writers, smiling, wearing their “Author” name tags. Congratulations to Ruth Abraham, Sylvia Aichel, Shoshana Preiss, Judy Hammond, Barbara Abraham, Vera Freudmann, Jenni Tsafrir, Katherine Shabat, Nancy McClure Galli, Talia Shwartzberg, Francis Assa, Laurie Bisberg-Primes, and Leon Moss, all writers I have met over the years in writing retreats.

Please buy this anthology in your local bookstore. Congratulations, too, to the editors, Shelley Goldman and Elana Shap. Their next project is a collection of short stories (600-3000 words) set in Tel Aviv, to mark its 100th anniversary. Submissions from May 1, 2007, so start writing now.

4. Publication News

• Judy Gray, Jerusalem, whose “Turning on the Jewish Lights in Europe” appeared in the winter 2006 issue of Women’s League Outlook Magazine of Conservative Judaism, has been asked to write another article for the same magazine.
• Ruth Mason, Jerusalem, has a new, monthly column in In Jerusalem, The Jerusalem Post week-end supplement, called “Life in the 50s.”
• Linda Goldberg’s (Boston) story “Heads Up” was published in the Nov. 20th (29 Cheshvan) issue of Binah Magazine.
• Sophie Judah, Hod Hasharon, who completed the Bar Ilan Creative Writing Program, will have her collection of stories, Dropped Into Darkness, published by Shocken/Random House in Spring, 2007.

5. Miscellaneous

• New Writing Group: Michael Loftus of Mevasseret would like to start a writing group in Mevasseret or Jerusalem once a month, to workshop fiction and nonfiction. Phone or email Michael for details: Tel. 02-533-2306 ml.loftus@gmail.com
• Techie Tip: Steve Kohn, a business writer from Ra’anana, who participated in my Dec. 24th writing retreat, uses a voice dictation system called Dragon Naturally Speaking. It records and types his words. As Steve says, this might be a valuable tool for other writers who suffer from illegible handwriting, poor typing kills, or arthritis in the hands. You can email Steve directly at stevkohn@netvision.net.il for details.
• Evan Fallenberg: For a terrific article about Evan, my colleague with whom I lead three-day writing retreats, and whose first novel, Light Fell, will come out in January 2008, click the following link. http://www.clevelandjewishnews.com/articles/2006/12/14/features/profile/fallenberg1215.txt

6. Interesting web sites

• www.nextbook.org – the gateway to Jewish literature, culture and ideas
• www.zeek.net – Zeek Magazine (online and print) is an independent Jewish journal of thought and culture, which features innovative wrietrs, artists, and critics
• www.eve-tal.com – From Kibbutz Hazor, Eve writes for young people. She is an expert on writing about the Holocaust for children.
• you are here: the journal of creative geography is calling for submissions until Jan. 20th for its Summer 2007 issue. You are here, an annual publication, focuses on Place, how Place is interpreted, experienced, and created. For submission guidelines, visit http://www.u.arizona.edu/~urhere

7. My Writing Life: Some Thoughts On Rejection

Being a writer enables me to continually deal with the issue of rejection. All writers, who try to publish their work, have to learn how to deal with rejection. I used to keep all my form rejection letters in a large notebook, until the notebook was full. How masochistic did I have to be? When I renamed the letters “clutter,” I was able to throw them out.

I was so used to rejection that, when I had a story accepted at Kenyon Review, I wasn’t sure I had understood the form letter. It came at a time when my rejection letters were becoming personal and encouraging. The KR acceptance letter was impersonal and dry.

I knew I was in trouble when I started preferring warm rejection letters to cold acceptance. The Kenyon Review acceptance helped me to keep writing, like any acceptance does, but when the issue with my story arrived at my Jerusalem home, no trumpets blew, no angles descended from heaven. I wasn’t invited to one talk show. Again, I learned that writing is its own reward.

Once, I received a two-page letter from an editor after she had kept my essay for nine months. It had gotten lost in some shuffle between Iowa and Florida and the editor was full of remorse and guilt, as well she should have been. Her letter, so warm, apologetic and complimentary, praised my essay. It took me a few days to realize that her letter was a rejection letter. I was angry and for five years rejected the rejecter. Today, I know this is not a helpful reaction to rejection, but then, when I was young, I believed in knee-jerk response.
Lately, I have avoided doing my own writing by pouring my energy into teaching. Teaching is the exact opposite of writing: You get instant feedback, usually from a crowd of appreciative, smiling folks.

Sometimes I think I must be mad to go on writing, when I could spend all my time teaching, but after a drought of 10-14 days, the image I confront in the mirror says Nu? And I know what I must do. I spruce up a piece for the umpteenth time and send it across the ocean to be read by some intern born in 1985.

When the rejection letter comes, I know I am supposed to send off the same piece immediately to another journal, but I usually can’t. First I have to curse the intern and the editor (if my piece got that far) who rejected me. That takes a week or so. Then I have to remind myself that I can write and have published, another two weeks. Then, if I’m not too busy teaching, weeding, planting, dancing, singing, polishing the silver, ironing, trekking, meditating, sleeping, reading, eating, scrubbing the windows, peeling Jerusalem artichokes, listening to friends, children, partner, writers, and cleaning each floor tile with a separate Scotch Brite until the whole floor shines, then, and only then, am I fortified to send out the writing again.

Hurray for writing that enables us all to learn how to deal with rejection!

Wishing you all a year of acceptance, joy, and good health,
Judy