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July 31st, 2010
This author thing is a new experience for me, of course, and people are naturally curious as to how it’s going. I’m not on the best seller list, but my status on Amazon varies from 100,000s to the 400,000s in rankings of books sold. That doesn’t count what I’m selling myself via the web site or in person. And I’m flattered by those who’ve posted favorable reviews on my Amazon page.
But, important as sales are, that’s not my sole criterion in assessing how After the Auction is “going.” I am intrigued by the reactions of readers and SHOCKED that many I’ve heard from like/love it. Why am I shocked? Let’s face it–this is a new venture for me–writing fiction. From the trials and tribulations I’ve had–for instance, not hooking up with any of the myriad of agents I queried–let’s say that I had considerable self-doubt.
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Tags: Beijing, Jonathan Ansfield, Judaism, London, New York Times, Religion and Spirituality, Secular Jewish culture, Tom Freudenheim, Wall Street Journal
Posted in general interest, publishing | 1 Comment »
July 5th, 2010
Yes, there IS sex in After the Auction.
Now, for those of you who haven’t bought or read it yet, doesn’t that make it more urgent?
But, no, I will not tell you what page it starts on. The book’s not that long. Even if you’re a reader who hunts straight for “the good parts,” it won’t take you that long to get there.
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Tags: Alan Rinzler, Google, Ruth Westheimer, sex after 60, Sexual intercourse, Sexuality, Steve Almond, Writing sex scenes
Posted in general interest | 3 Comments »
June 1st, 2010
Book Expo America 2010 was my first Book Expo, other than a pre-Expo writers’ conference last year, so I’ve nothing to compare it to, in terms of the volumes of volumes represented at this annual event, the largest book fair in the world. If it was bigger and more extensive in the past, I wouldn’t know. But, the place was packed; if you’ve ever been to a convention or other expo at the Javits Center in New York City, you know that it’s cavernous, seemingly miles, definitely many Manhattan blocks. There were more than 2000 exhibitors, reportedly 500 authors, conferences, speakers, and Barbra Streisand (yes, she has a new book coming out–on design) the opening act of Expo special events (we opted for Broadway that night).
The biggest exhibitors are the major publishers–the MacMillans, Random Houses, Knopf–of this world, despite their b…… and moaning about how tough the business is. These exhibit areas are lavish, with video, state-of-the-art signage, giant logo-ed carpeting. Not surprisingly, Google was there too, and Amazon and Barnes & Noble–as well as major distributors to independent bookstores, including Ingram and Baker & Taylor. There were whole aisles–several of them–of displays by university presses, as well as hundreds on lesser known small publishers. Plus, the e-book and audio book people. And printing companies, collective promotion companies, foreign publishers (from Belgium to Israel to Saudi Arabia), and the San Francisco Writers Conference, the only entity like it I saw with a booth. Attendee categories range from exhibitor to agents to booksellers to librarians author to book club member (how Eli registered: husband of published author was not a category!)
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Posted in general interest, publishing | 1 Comment »
May 25th, 2010
My book-related travels have taken me to New York City the week of the annual Book Expo event. Specifically, I came to present AFTER THE AUCTION to a Jewish Book Network (JBN) “Meet the Author” session. The audience, the members of the JBN, consists of Jewish community center, educational agencies, and synagogue programming staff members who “book” author speakers for their sites. The JBN schedules 4-5 of these sessions over a three-day period during its annual conference just ahead of the opening of the huge Book Expo exhibition at the Javits Center here.
I’d really targeted this year’s JBN meeting as my timing goal for getting my book published. And I was amazed at how many other authors apparently had, too. The sessions run like a well-oiled machine: Each author gets two minutes to speak, and the next speaker sits in an “on deck” seat. While the timekeeper doesn’t exactly use a hook or play Oscar night music, her bright red signs announcing 1 minute, 30 seconds, 10 seconds and her ultimate times-up rise from her seat are pretty effective in keeping the speakers in line. That is, except for a couple–including at least one prominent novelist, Cathleen Schine, whose latest book, The Three Weissmanns of Westport, only got a great front-page review in the NY Times Book Review (which she did mention, but who wouldn’t?). It surprised me that such a relatively well-known writer would appear for this try-out session; maybe it surprised her, too, but that was no reason for her to disregard the rules and ignore the timekeeper trying to be polite but firm.
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Tags: Author, Cathleen Schine, Judaism, New York City, New York Times, Religion and Spirituality, San Francisco Bay Area, The Three Weissmanns of Westport: A Novel
Posted in publishing | 2 Comments »
March 26th, 2010
No guest bloggers–it’s the author herself!
After a way too long absence, I’m back to the blog at an auspicious time: it’s almost Passover, when we use a Seder plate, which is the object of my protagonist’s search. Okay, I’ve got relevance covered! My husband and I are here in Beijing for Passover with our son and daughter-in-law here, the third time we’ve done Seder here. Despite the super long winter they’ve had this year, with a few interspersed days of springlike dust storms, we’ve had a first day+ of sunny, 60-degree weather.
And why the long absence from blogging? As is well known to many of my friends and family, I’ve been chair of “Jews in Modern China,” an exhibit running from February 24 to May 16 at the Presidio Officers’ Club Exhibition Hall in San Francisco. This exhibit depicts the three streams of Jewish settlement in Shanghai, Harbin, and other cities in China from the 1840s to 1949: Baghdadi Sephardim who came for commerce, Russians fleeing first czarist pogroms and later the Bolsheviks, and Central Europeans escaping the Holocaust. So far, this has been the Presidio’s most well attended exhibit, we’ve had great PR, docent tours, special lectures and events, and it’s consumed my life for months. It’s a miracle–oh, wait, Chanukah is the miracle holiday–that we managed to get away for this trip. But spending Passover with kids–priceless, especially when they live in China. Fourteen people are coming to the Seder at Amy and Jonathan’s on Monday.
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Posted in default | 5 Comments »
January 13th, 2010
This is it! I’ve decided that, come what may, it’s the Year of the Book. I don’t know how yet. Pieces of it are still out to agents, and one editor is still reviewing the whole manuscript. I think so, anyway. Let’s just say there are long silences. And patience is not one of my stellar virtues.
An e-publisher is courting me. We had a long talk a few weeks ago during a week in which there was so much e-publishing buzz that I felt very cool and with-it in today’s world. William Styron’s family was making news about the fact that his longtime publisher, Random House, didn’t have rights to e-publish. E-publishing rights weren’t even thought of in Styron’s heyday. In December Media Bistro sponsored a New York City digital publishing summit in led by Jane Friedman, a publishing industry luminary formerly with Harper Collins, who’s made the leap to e-publishing (of old titles, such as Styron’s) in a start-up, Open Road Integrated Media.
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Posted in publishing | 3 Comments »
December 25th, 2009
Mind you, as a Scot born early in the 20th century, I’m quite honored to be a guest blogger. My, my, what a lot of change I’ve seen.
Blogging is amazing, to be sure, but it’s not the most worthwhile or even the most thrilling of my life’s experiences. Certainly not. My work with the Monuments Men–now, that was work that made me proud. One would say I was a Monuments Woman, although we women did not get the credit we deserved. Yet another recurring theme in the story of my life. Yet, living the life has made up for it.
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Tags: Holocaust, London, Monuments Men, Nazi art looting, Secrets of the Afikomen, World War II
Posted in Guest Bloggers from SECRETS OF THE AFIKOMEN | 4 Comments »
December 20th, 2009
It’s taken me a while to get to this post about America’s so-called national pastime, which no one is playing right now, because there’s a blizzard in New York City (I hope it stops and melts and that airplane traffic normalizes, because we’re going there next week). Bob Herbert’s October 17 column in the New York Times really got to me, given its timing relative to the book price wars conducted by Target, Walmart, and Costco, among other purveyors of fine literature. Herbert strikes me, in general, as a voice of conscience, decrying ills and inequities in this country and elsewhere, recently to the point of sharply criticizing those that he’d hoped President Obama would fix or try to alleviate–and isn’t.
The column I’m citing, timed during the baseball championship games leading to the World Series, focused on the the fancy new baseball stadiums in New York, including the Mets’ new home named for its corporate sponsor, Citigroup, of federal rescue funds fame. Herbert makes the point that, even for many families not desperately hurt by recession and unemployment, a jaunt to these new palaces of sport is an expense worthy of considerable thought. Between tickets and concessions, baseball has priced itself out of the ballpark. Herbert, recalling his childhood when “even the scalpers’ tickets were affordable,” regrets that today’s youngsters of modest means have no access to America’s pastime, and people sleep on the street while one magnificent, luxury box-lined field after another opens.
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Posted in general interest | 9 Comments »
December 8th, 2009
GENRE
Pronunciation: \ˈzhän-rə, ˈzhäⁿ-; ˈzhäⁿr; ˈjän-rə\
Function: noun
Etymology: French, from Middle French, kind, gender — more at gender
Date: 1770
1 : a category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content
2 : kind, sort
3 : painting that depicts scenes or events from everyday life, usually realistically
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Tags: genre, hen lit, historical fiction, mystery
Posted in Guest Bloggers from SECRETS OF THE AFIKOMEN, genre, publishing | 14 Comments »
November 24th, 2009
Blog, schmog! So, now I’m a guest blogger? What do I know about this blogging?
Well, here goes: I’m nothing if not adaptable. Warsaw. London. New York. Israel. I’ve made my way for 96 years. Pretty successful in business. Personal life? A few relatives, friends, a lot of acquaintances. I stayed busy. After I lost Elisabeth, no one could compare, so there was never a wife, no children. But at least I had Lily; I could be like a father to her. And a grandfather to her kids. Such a blessing that’s been in my life.
So, that night, when Lily came over to the house and told me, who could believe it? I was stunned. All of a sudden, after so many years, the di Salamone Seder plate shows up in front of her eyes at an auction? Then–poof–just like that, it’s gone again?
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Tags: Holocaust, London, Nazi art looting, Nazism, New York City, Simon Wiesenthal
Posted in Guest Bloggers from SECRETS OF THE AFIKOMEN | No Comments »
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is “going.” I am intrigued by the reactions of readers and SHOCKED that many I’ve heard from like/love it. Why am I shocked? Let’s face it–this is a new venture for me–writing fiction. From the trials and tribulations I’ve had–for instance, not hooking up with any of the myriad of agents I queried–let’s say that I had considerable self-doubt.