October 2024: Poems for Hersh, books to distract, and blessings for a better year

Writing, reading, resources and recipes + an update from day 361

Oct 01, 2024

Dear friends,

Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, starts tomorrow evening, and it’s a universal truth that we’re all praying for a better year. May October be the month that sees our hostages home, our soldiers safe, our evacuees able to return home, our wounded healed, and less suffering all around. Scroll down for your monthly dose of book reviews, upcoming literary events, poems, stories, a recipe, and an update from my corner of Israel.

Brief writing update: I’ve continued to hone the stories for my new book, in some cases cutting them down and in other cases adding to them to strengthen the threads and overall narrative arc. I’ve done a lot of thinking about the title and I have a few ideas. Mostly I’ve been working on a query letter to find an agent. Wish me luck!

Some nice news: I had a great time discussing The Book of Jeremiah with a large book club in Modiin. I’m always happy to meet with book clubs, in-person if feasible, or on Zoom, if not, so feel free to get in touch if your book group would be interested.

Recommended Reading

I’m up to 63 books for the year, right on schedule for my self-imposed challenge to read 85. (Does it help that some of those are slim volumes of poetry? Yes, it does…). Here are this month’s recommendations:

The Phoenix Bride by Natasha Siegel: I really enjoyed this historical novel, which takes place in 17th century London, just after the plague. Cecilia Thorowgood is a young widow, devastated by the loss of her husband; her sister Margaret, married to a member of the court, is worried about Cecilia’s mental state and while searching for a “cure” keeps Cecilia practically imprisoned in her townhouse. At her wit’s end, Margaret hires David Mendes, a Jewish physician who’d fled Portugal with his father and is also grieving the loss of a dear friend. David is the only one who can get through to Cecilia, and naturally feelings develop…Their relationship is impossible, but you can’t help rooting for them. I won’t reveal any more, but this was an excellent read and does a good job of bringing London (of that time period) to life, including the plague, the medical practices, the way society treated Jews and gays, the court, and the great fire. I listened to the audiobook and the narration was also very good.

James by Percival Everett: Here’s a book many of you probably have heard of, since it’s been shortlisted and nominated for a million awards. The novel is a brilliant retelling (or redaction?) of The Adventures of Huck Finn, but this time told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view. When Jim hears that he’s to be sold away from his wife and daughter, he hides on a nearby island until he can formulate his plan. Huck fakes his death to get away from his violent father, but this does not bode well for Jim, though they are companions. The book is both harrowing and darkly comic, and one senses that Twain would have approved. The Wall Street Journal calls the book “a kind of commentary or midrash, broadening our understanding of an endangered classic by bringing out the tragedy behind the comic facade.” A brilliant book and quick read. Highly recommend.

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld: Careful readers of this newsletter will note that this is the third Curtis Sittenfeld book I’ve read this year! That’s because her books are extremely readable and smart, full of strong women characters. An added bonus is that the worlds that she creates are very far from our current reality and make for an excellent distraction. American Wife is fiction loosely based on the life of Laura Bush. In Sittenfeld’s retelling, Alice is a children’s librarian in Milwaulkee who has come to peace with her assumption that she’ll remain single, but then she is swept off her feet by Charlie Blackwell, the scion of a wealthy conservative family. Like his father, a former governor, Charlie has political aspirations and soon Alice, a closet Democrat, is on her way to becoming a Republican first lady. I especially liked this blurb from Richard Russo: “American Wife is a brave and moving novel about the intersection of private and public life in America. Ambitious and humble at the same time, Sittenfeld refuses to trivialize or simplify people, whether real or imagined.”

Events

We have an amazing lineup of readers for the October Literary Modiin event, a special solidarity event marking one year since October 7th. We'll hear readings and about a few of the many worthwhile, moving literary initiatives happening these days. The event will take place over Zoom, on Sunday October 6, at 20:00 Israel time / 1 pm Eastern. Join me to hear from Joanna Chen, Yonatan Berg, Hadassa Tal, Hadassa Ben-Ari, Hannah Wacholder Katsman, Hanna Yerushalmi, Caroline Goldberg Igra and Ephrat Huss. Register here.

More events, coming soon:

Literary Modiin’s November event, Sunday, Nov 10 (20:00 Israel time / 1 pm Eastern), will feature Helen Schary Motro (THE RIGHT TO HAPPINESS), Sarah Seltzer (THE SINGER SISTERS) and Talia Carner (THE BOY WITH THE STAR TATTOO). Register here.
Sunday Nov 17 - The 2024 Jewish Writers’ Conference, sponsored by the Jewish Book Council, is open for registration. The conference is virtual, and will take place from 10 am - 5 pm Eastern time. I’ll be speaking on an additional panel on Wednesday, November 20, at 12 pm Eastern, entitled “Why is This War Different from All Other Wars: Writing About Israel After October 7th,” together with Deborah Harris and Galina Vromen, moderated by Miryan Sivan.
Save the dates for upcoming Literary Modiin events - Sunday December 15 and Sunday January 19! Missed any of our Literary Modiin events? Catch the recordings here.

Poems of the Month: For Hersh

It was too difficult to pick just one poem of the month this time, so I’ll offer many.

Judith Magazine put out an entire folio of poems in tribute to Hersh Goldberg-Polin and his family. Please read these poems by Aviya Kushner, Zeeva Bukai, Hanna Yerushalmi, Michal Kara, Faye Rapoport DesPres, Tara Zafft, S. C. Gordon, Harriet Levin, Rebecca Bat-Zeev, and Matthew Lippman.
Writing on the Wall, another post-Oct 7 initiative, has a call for submission for “Scarred.” While I was on the site, I caught two more poems in tribute to Hersh. Tell Me (גלה לי in Hebrew) by Dr. Yaakov Mascetti and Jerusalem Caesarean (for Rachel Goldberg) by Geula Geurts. Please read these two, and check out the podcasts with the authors reading and discussing their work.

(And now for something completely different…)

Story of the Month: Excerpt from Olive Days

Excerpt from Olive Days by Jessica Elisheva Emerson (Judith Magazine): I’ve been hearing about this recently-released novel lately, and now that I’ve read the excerpt I can’t wait to read the whole novel!

Resource of the Month: Sub Club

I can’t remember (or find) if I’ve recommended this one previously. Sub Club is a Substack with up-to-date submission calls from literary magazines, details on top agents and open indie presses for book authors, where to pitch your nonfiction and get paid for your essays, and insights, interviews, and opportunities for writers. Highly recommend this great resource for writers!

Recipe of the Month: Creamy Leek Soup & other Rosh Hashana recipes

Welcome to the near end of my “regular” newsletter, where you’re rewarded with a yummy recipe. A few of the things I’ll be making for Rosh Hashana include recipes I’ve already featured in this newsletter such as my friend Nava’s Sheva Minim (Seven Species) Salad, Adeena Sussman’s delicious Pomegranate Sumac Margaritas, and the desserts I’ll be making for the families of miluimnikim (reservists) - my friend Grace’s Chocolate Chip Banana Bread and Martha Stewart’s brownies.

Anyway, here’s the leek soup that I made this past Shabbat, which I adapted from Martha Rose Shulman at NYT Cooking. Definitely a keeper.

Ingredients

Olive oil

6 large leeks, white and light green parts only, cleaned and sliced

4 garlic cloves, minced

8-9 cups chicken stock, vegetable stock or water

½ cup basmati rice

1 bay leaf

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Sautee leeks and garlic in olive oil for about five minutes. Add the stock, rice, bay leaf, salt and pepper, and bring to a boil, then simmer until everything is soft. Discard the bay leaf and blend with an immersion blender. Serve with croutons or chives. Easy and yummy!

Israel Update & Resources

I won’t rehash the news here for you, but once again it has been an EVENTFUL few weeks since I last wrote. Yes, ding-dong, one of the wicked witches is dead, but this is far from over and the feeling as we enter the holiday season is still pretty dreary. Quite simply, we’re all exhausted. Many of my kids’ friends and our friends’ kids are getting called back up for miluim; my coworker, who has a critical role in the army - something to do with the Iron Dome - has been serving, away from his wife and baby, for at least 10 of the last 12 months; the hostages have now been in captivity for 361 days and their families and friends are doing whatever they can to keep them in the public eye, but there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight

A Brief Explainer: In this installment of my friend Vivian Cohen-Leisorek’s Substack, she answers some questions on the campaign in Lebanon, on a possible ceasefire and on what the future may bring.

The new normal

We were reading on our porch on Shabbat afternoon when the latest siren in Modiin went off. (As I’m editing this, if I’d been at work today, I’d have had another one in Tel Aviv). Anyway, on Saturday we gathered in our safe room (guest room) with my son and his friends. About 90% of the room is taken up by a bed, and so all four (big) 20-year-old guys got up on the bed, while my husband and I stood in the remaining 10% of the floor space. Happiest of all was Joey, our dog, who was up on the bed with the boys getting his tummy rubbed. After the requisite time in the safe room we shrugged and went back to what we were doing before. When Shabbat was over, I went for a run, my son went to his football practice, my daughter came home from her Tzofim (Scouts) activity and there was no question of doing anything different. So now we’ve had three ballistic missiles sent by the Houtis in the last two weeks, including one at 12:40 am the other night, when I’d just gone to sleep (grrrrr).

Are we now living in a sci fi movie?

Sci fi has never been my genre of choice, but since the pager incident I’ve been wondering, what’s next? Will our water bottles suddenly turn into spaceships? Will Joey and other pets across the Middle East stand on two legs and start singing Hativkah? That would be a cool ending, the one I’m rooting for at any rate. Anything is possible in this life-imitating-sci-fi world….

Keep calm and pick on

Volunteering in the agricultural sector on a weekly basis is still keeping me sane. It’s a short week this week, so instead of our regular bike ride early this morning, my biking partner and I drove 45 minutes away to pick pomegranates. Alas, the farmer was not very organized. He wasn’t where he said he’d be, didn’t answer his phone, and we couldn’t find any other volunteers, so after a half an hour we turned around and drove home. It wasn’t a total wash, though, because we did get to a an excellent wild fig tree and picked some figs. Last week I picked olives for the first time, which was easy and fun. Perhaps I’ll go back there next week.