But, more significantly, I’ve been AWOL from writing.

Sure, I got very busy this summer with the new novel, finishing a prologue and two chapters. Then there was Chapter 3–started on the plane home from meetings in New York City  in September and…not touched again for nearly a month. I finally buckled down and finished it two weeks ago. And, you may have noticed, no blog posts, either.

So, is this what they call writer’s block? A month of down time?

It took me 20+ years of research and four years of writing process to get AFTER THE AUCTION into the hands of readers. I’d like to think I have that kind of time left to publish #2, but let’s be candid: at 63, that’s magical thinking (sorry, Joan Didion). Every day should be viewed as a gift and an opportunity.

I’d call this unproductive period writer’s malaise–or funk. Mostly, it’s been a time of questioning. As in: What the hell am I doing? Why? Is writing the next Lily Kovner-based novel worthwhile? Has the experience of publishing the first book been fulfilling enough to keep on? Should I take my cue from naysaying agents and decide that I’m no good? Should I close down when contacts at potential speaking venues (like Jewish organizational professionals in various cities) don’t even bother to acknowledge an email? When a newspaper book critic says point blank to forget a review, if the book is self-published?

After all the years I did marketing and sales in business, is the rejection factor too much at this stage of life? I have always prided myself on being willing and able to cold call (or cold email) anyone. Are recipients too swamped for even a tacit response, or is business just that much ruder these days?

Today it’s all about social media marketing–the constant push to post on Facebook, to tweet on Twitter, to blog post, to get the book and me out there. Am I doing enough? Doing it right (whatever that means)? I do note that Twitter followers tend to increase when I’ve tweeted more. (How followers find me or anyone else not famous I have no clue. And the time it takes to follow those you follow–who gets anything else done?) Re: Facebook, I’m always amazed at the postings throughout the day from “friends” whom I know still work full-time. However useful these resources are, they’re also distracting.

Bottom line I’ve been asking myself, like Lily going after the Seder plate, do I need this in my life? Do I want it?

I’m trying hard to remind myself that this is a tough business, and I have had some nice surprises along the way.

The reviews in the Forward and Hadassah’s online summer edition were rare gifts. Some people like the book. The talks I give are very well-received.  I am fortunate enough to not have to write for a living. Maybe this whole new direction of writing books will keep my young (OK, a stretch…)

I HAVE met some very nice new people along the way (in person, online, by phone) and have been warmed by their support and that of long-cherished friends and family.

Writing is like exercising: hard to get started, something to bear while you’re doing it, but a great feeling when you’ve finished. Until it’s time to start all over again.

I am goal-oriented and today, after exercising (weight machines and a swim), I set the goal of writing a blog post. Goal for the coming week: Finish chapter 4  of The Lost Torah of Shanghai.

Let’s see if posting a to-do list will keep this writer writing!

This is part of the email response I got yesterday morning from a New York literary agent, who shall remain nameless. I read it on my IPhone, while my husband and I were driving back to San Francisco from a quick weekend trip to Los Angeles. The thumbs-on-phone approach wouldn’t work for my reply, and I wouldn’t have time to write back on my computer until later in the evening. But I had plenty of time to think about it the challenge it presented. Those “fighting words” were a clarion call to action!

If this male agent is correct, do “mainstream publishers” have a clue as to why their industry is on the skids? To state the obvious, there are millions of 60 (and 60+) year old female readers. Baby Boomer marketing is as hot as we are!

The whole agent thing is an approach-avoidance issue with me. I tried to get one in my quest to have AFTER THE AUCTION published in the traditional “mainstream publisher” way. And here and there I take another stab at that route as I work on the next book. My years in business taught me about gatekeepers, and on the path to a conventional book deal agents are the first line of defense. If you interest one in your work, they’re supposed to become advocates. But hooking one is not so easy. Candidly, they usually say my writing fails to impress. Well, okay, I’ve learned to live with far greater rejection than that. Of course, readers way beyond six degrees of separation of family and friends have enjoyed the book. But those who don’t, including agents, well, isn’t that why there are chocolate and…strawberry?

But to say that women of a certain age aren’t interesting to publishers?

Instantly, I remembered an interview in 1980, when I was looking for my first job in the investment business, a major career shift from marketing/PR/journalism at a time when I badly needed a better job. One local office manager at a then prominent (now defunct, like so many others) national firm told me, “No regional manager would ever hire a woman with a six year old child.” Today that would be grounds for a juicy lawsuit. A few weeks later another manager took a chance on me, and the rest is history.

I wasn’t anywhere near 60 then, but it’s all part of the same phenomenon. Discrimination.

Now, I’m not the kind of person who sees Nazis or the Klan or Male Chauvinist Pigs around every corner, but today you’d think at least political correctness would deter statements like the agent made. Or maybe, to be fair and extremely generous, this isn’t what the agent thinks is right, but he was just taking me into his confidence by sharing an ugly truth about publishing industry reality.

This is a time when even Hollywood is managing to find good roles for women of a certain age. Helen Mirren, Meryl Streep, Judi Dench, Diane Keaton–I rest that case.

Which brings me to the juxtaposition of yesterday’s morning email and the event I attended last night, back here in San Francisco. It was a kickoff event of a conference on women’s economic self-sufficiency sponsored by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, part of an APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit here this week. I tried to get into this conference playing all my political and volunteer cards: HIPPY (Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters, a Hillary/Bill “cause”) USA vice-chair; American Jewish Committee Asia-Pacific Institute board member; NCJW ex-national board member. Contacts with my congressperson, Nancy Pelosi’s, DC office. Nada, no dice. Nothing worked. Until I got an email from A Band of Wives, a women’s networking/action/support group I recently joined after learning about when I went to a political event, and everyone I met there seemed to be a member.

Last night’s sponsor was Friends of the SF Commission on the Status of Women. After presentations by corporate, anti-trafficking and political representatives, we saw the documentary, “Miss Representation,” a powerful look at media treatment of women that reinforces stereotypes about women regarding issues ranging from body image to political power to aging (a stunning actress “encouraged” to have botex injections). The filmmaker is Jennifer Seibel Newsom, wife of our ex-mayor and current California Lt. Governor, Gavin Newsom, herself a stunning blonde, former actress AND Stanford MBA (a credential she was encouraged to leave off her Hollywood resumé).

To say the least, it was like an exclamation point to my reaction to the agent’s statement.

Stay tuned…

Not that I haven’t thought about blogging. I’ve even felt guilty about not blogging. But I’ve posted on Facebook (even developed a new Facebook page–please LIKE me!) and tweeted on Twitter (FOLLOW me, please). Does that count? Even if I haven’t blogged since 2010?  Writing the next book? Not so much.

Yes, I know that social networking is the marketing mode of choice. I know I have to do it. I’m doing it. I see results, actually, as when I tweet several times a day I gain a new follower or two. Facebook, well, I saw a small bounce in my book sales when I mentioned a “promotion” during National Read an Ebook Week, which was also on International Women’s Day (is there a National Week for Self-Published Authors? Or Baby Boomers on Facebook/Twitter?).

Sometimes, when I get somewhat frustrated with all this, I ask myself why I’m doing this. I mean, what did or do I want from even publishing the book? A runaway best-seller would be nice, but, clearly, that’s not happening. Do I need book revenue to live, eat, buy clothes, travel? No, thank goodness. BUT, having expended years of effort in writing, not to mention a nice financial sum for editing, self-publishing, and traveling to speak, it would be nice to make a little profit. And, slowly, I am. Very slowly. Just ask my husband.

So, what’s my motivation, if not money? I’ve worked hard to tell a good story, at least that’s what people who like it tell me it is. (Do you detect an element of self-doubt here? No, I’m still just surprised). So, I want to share the story. The fact that I’ve published to do so means I have some desire for recognition, preferably positive. On some level I’ve always wanted to make my mark as a writer.  Not necessarily as a novelist, but it’s certainly been a new challenge and source of accomplishment. Maybe that should be enough. (“Congratulations, Mom, for just doing it.”)

But I’ve got to tell you that, sometimes in these past few months, I’ve wondered how this all got to be a source of stress, tension, and time-management angst. That was NOT what I wanted, especially since retiring from 30+ years as an investment broker at the end of 2010. To be honest, I’ve looked at me and my book vs. everything that’s going on in the rest of the world that I care about–Japan, the Middle East, joblessness, education, reproductive choice–and I think I’ve got to put this in perspective. If I, a woman of a certain age who cares about so many REALLY IMPORTANT things (plus my family and friends), why is success with the book so important? If I don’t tweet ten times a day (or even once a day) or blog for almost three months, it won’t change the world, probably not even my world.

All that said, I’m competitive–sometimes, even unbecomingly so, when I read about huge success stories with books or contemplate the publication of a book by someone I know. I’d like to think that, having accomplished MORE in my life than just publishing a book, this doesn’t define me or the totality of my life. It doesn’t.

But, let’s face it, I’m hoping that all my efforts to create buzz will ultimately make my book like Sarah’s Key, the French Holocaust story that “made it” in the US about two years after first publication–and has been on best-seller lists for another two+ years.

In the meantime, I have to remember that blogging, posting, and tweeting–while all forms of the written word–are not WRITING. Especially not the next book. Blog posts or the next book? I’m trying to do more of both. Stay tuned.

After the Auction may be set in 1990, but it’s cutting edge when it comes to 21st century access. It’s just been released in e-book format, which a few friends have asked about for months. I deliberately delayed this to take advantage of separate marketing opportunities and generally test the waters in print first.

The e-version has a few enhancements not yet in the print version: book club discussion questions and a glossary of Jewish/Hebrew terms that might not be clear to the non-Jewish reader. This was suggested by one. These additions will soon be posted on this web site, too.

I’m a passionate reader and book lover and buyer who has moved cartons and cartons of books from one home to another forever and hates to give any away–ever. Unfortunately, our San Francisco home space mandates that sad activity when our floor-to-ceiling bookcase reaches capacity. And, in truth, even when we lived in bigger houses, there was never enough space for all the books. So, the concept of the e-reader was something to be pooh-poohed–to not hold a physical book sounded blasphemous.

However, last year, as we prepared for the African trip we had to postpone, we decided that a Kindle (still the main name then) would be a good idea to enable us to read on all those long flights without schlepping a lot of heavy books. One’s advised/urged to travel with limited luggage on these safari ventures which utilize small planes to certain destinations.

I hate to admit it, but the Kindle is a guilty pleasure from which I’ve read books mostly on vacation but occasionally at home, too, because I can tuck it into almost any purse or bag and pick up where I left off when I have a few minutes on public transportation, in a waiting room, between meetings, etc. Last week I even read while having my teeth cleaned at the dentist. Actually, that proved to be a marketing opportunity, as I was finishing Daniel Silva‘s The Rembrandt Affair, which sparked a conversation with my dentist and the hygienist, both of whom are Daniel Silva fans. This led to an opportunity to mention that, if they like Daniel Silva, they’ll like my book!! And, as I hate even the noise of dental equipment, reading proved to be a great distraction, and the time flew. The large font I have on the Kindle made it possible for me to hold it in a place where I could read and not interfere with the hygienist’s scraping and cleaning.  I hope it will work the next time I have a more painful procedure. I am a chicken at the dentist, need local anesthetic even for bonding; by comparison I’ve endured the aftermath of knee surgery with no painkillers. I was permanently scarred by our childhood dentist ,who didn’t believe in Novocaine or gas for kids under 18, and my mother believed in him! He was actually a dental school professor of my dentist here, and he terrified his students, too. Probably a great dentist, but, when the movie “Marathon Man” came out, my brother and I were sure it was based on Dr. K; he hadn’t been a Nazi war criminal, of course, but we thought he was a sadist!

But I digress…

The Kindle font is also great late at night, when I find it hard to read even with my reading specs. So, as long as I’m a fan of these devices, my readers should be able to get it on theirs, too.

Only problem: no way for the author to sign an e-book!  Check out my e-book publisher’s site, www.untreedreads.com to order!

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.

Some very nice things are happening in the wake of the book.  Tom Freudenheim, an icon in the world of Jewish and non-Jewish cultural circles, is writing a review in The Forward.  Tom’s career has included management or curatorial positions at such institutions as the UC-Berkeley Art Museum, the Smithsonian, the Jewish Museum in Berlin, and the Gilbert Collection in London, and he’s  a frequent contributor to publications including, lately, the Wall Street Journal.  I’d met Tom years ago at a conference of the Foundation for Jewish Culture, of which he was board chair at the time.  We’ve kept in touch on and off, which put him on my email list when I announced the book publication.  He wrote that he’d ordered it, and sent me a message with the subject line WOW!! after he read it–and the next thing I knew he wrote that he pitched The Forward for a short review–that I think will be good??

Getting the attention of the media–everything from even my local Jewish paper, J Weekly, to the New York Times (woke up one morning last week and remembered–oh, yeah, my kid works for the Times–not that it’s likely to help!  We’ll discuss this week.) is a challenge for any writer.  For one not published by a so-called mainstream publisher it’s really an uphill battle.  So, while The Forward is NOT the Times, it has a name in certain circles and will give me a blurb to parlay onto the next potential PR outlet.

Finally, one review that really means something to me is that of the aforementioned kid, Jonathan Ansfield, who flew home to the US yesterday from his Beijing residence (notice I say “home” to the US and Beijing “residence.”  I can dream–right?).  Jonathan and Amy arrived in Milwaukee last night.  On the phone he mentioned that he read the copy I’d sent them on the flight.  He seemed impressed with his mother’s written sex scene–but also said he could really see it as a movie (not the first to mention that) and will give it to someone he knows whose mom writes “treatments” (pitches for films).  Pretty cool when your grown kid thinks you’ve done something cool.

What else do I need?

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!)

Since I’d self-published, so to speak, I didn’t have a publisher’s site to feature me at a signing.  Those that did included some big names, such as best-selling mystery writer  Michael Connelly, who was actually there signing books for a line of devotées that even Eli, a fan, thought was too long.  His patience, or lack of same, didn’t even respond to the free book  which came with the signing.  There were also huge lines for signings at Harlequin (romance) publishers.

Ah, the free books–that was an amazing phenomenon that I hadn’t expected.  (And we succumbed to a few more than we should have, considering that we’re schlepping them back to San Francisco this weekend, despite our limited luggage space for this Denver-New York-Chicago-Milwaukee odyssey of friends’, book, business, family, and reunion events strung one after another.) I’ll let you know what I like when I read the few I picked up.  Just like at the Jewish Book Network event–so many interesting books (so little time to read).

AFTER THE AUCTION did get some visibility at Book Expo.  I had signed up for a spot on a new titles showcase that was prominently positioned in the Javits lobby outside the exhibit areas–well placed near food, restrooms, newsstands, and seating (a much appreciated commodity after traipsing through the Expo).  And, networker/worker of a room (even a giant one like Javits) that I am, I met quite a few “relevant” people.

Like other self-publishing companies, Lightning Source the resource I used, was represented–as part of the massive Ingram exhibit (Ingram owns Lightning Source, one reason I chose it, as Ingram is a major book distributor). Sadly, I had no advance clue that some of their self-published products would be on display at that exhibit.  I asked the rep, who said, “Who’s your Lightning Source sales rep?”  So, I know now, if this happens again, that this is one more area of self-promotion–my self-publishing company sales rep!!  The key to a shot at exposure at the company’s exhibit.

So, I had my moment (or days) in the sun at Book Expo.  But for me, it was a learning experience, part of the totality of the learning experience that is publishing a book.

But maybe the next book will be displayed at one of the biggie publisher’s sites, with a queue for my signing.  It would be nice for Eli to have the patience to stick around for that one!

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.

There were other higher profile writers either there last night or presenting at one of the other JBN sessions.  The range of subject matter was from cookbooks to novels to religion to memoirs to history to a  single Jewish woman’s guide to life “between Bat Mitzvah and babushka.” (Age-wise, that talk put me in the babushka category, I think.)  From 5 pm to after 7–bang, bang, bang–there must have been 35 presentations with a few quick stand-up and stretch breaks (I don’t think anyone even got up to go to the restroom).

Afterward there was a kosher wine and hors d’oeuvre reception (the site was the Park Avenue Synagogue on the upper East Side of Manhattan) which was a chance to network with the Jewish Book Network.  Cathleen Schine may be a literary star, but this is where  neophyte novelist Linda Frank shines!  Armed with my new business cards (book cover on the back), I made the rounds and tried to talk with a representative of every city there.  Of course, my peripatetic life gave me a head start, as there were people from Milwaukee, Denver, and the Bay Area, and I already knew a few of them, as well as a friend’s daughter who runs the Jewish Book Festival in Austin and an old friend who’s an active volunteer and donor at the West Palm Beach JCC.

Will I get any speaking gigs from this?  Who knows?  Budgets are tight across the country, so flying in an unknown from San Francisco might not be a slam dunk.  In Austin they only bring in one fiction writer per festival.  I’m assured of Bay Area appearances, I’m told, and possibly as “home town girl” in Milwaukee.  Maybe Montreal, DC, New Orleans. But I got myself and the book out there.

And I’ve got some great tips on new books I want to read!

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.

But e-publishing is not a perfect answer and hardly a universally accepted concept.  Personally, my patronage of and concern for book stores (especially independents) notwithstanding,  I have to confess to the Kindle as a guilty pleasure.  We bought them in preparation for this fall’s Africa trip that didn’t happen; you’re not allowed much luggage on safari, and the long plane trips mandated lots of reading.  With six books downloaded, I’ve used the device, despite not going to Africa.  It’s fun and SO easy to read print adjusted to my eyesight and to carry around (downside is it’s one of the electronic devices flight attendants want you to turn off for take-off and about 20 minutes before landing).

But my potential market for Secrets of the Afikomen will mandate a physical product.  And, if a book succeeds through some form of self-publishing, there’s a chance a big name might pick it up later.  Not likely with e-publishing. Publishers aren’t going to let those rights slip away for long.

Good segue to self-publishing, which is what I’m really pondering here.  I’m beginning to explore this option and fighting to conquer the ego part of succumbing to it.  Is it for losers in the formal publishing world?  Is the caché of a “real” publishing deal still worth the struggle? The reality is that a newcomer, even with a book deal, is not likely to be showered with big publishing perks like a goodly advance, a book tour, or much marketing help.  There’s a lot I’d have to do myself either way, and I’m prepared for that (this web site is the beginning).  But distribution to book stores is a problem with self-publishing.  Here in San Francisco we hardly have room for that proverbial garage full of books to load into the car and schlep around the country.  Yet, I’ve seen at least one self-publishing “house” advertise its products in the New York Times Sunday Book Review section, which is a good sign of the potential for this route.

Lots to uncover and discover.  But this is the year.  Time to embrace the Chinese New Year Tiger and make it happen!

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

As the protagonist in Secrets of the Afikomen, I should be uniquely qualified to answer this question about the book my friend, Linda, has written. Ah, yes, we are friends–we’ve spent a lot of time together over the years as she’s worked to tell my story. Some in the book business strive to pinpoint a genre within fiction. Let’s go over some of the choices: mystery, thriller, literary, science fiction, romance, historical, women’s, spiritual. Then there are a couple that are new to me: chick lit and hen lit. And the “biz” categorizes uses the terms commercial and trade book, too. I understand commercial; trade fiction????

Where does Secrets of the Afikomen fit?

Like many people–Linda and me, to name two (OK, at least one of us is a real person)–it’s not a round peg in a round hole. The book transcends genres. It has elements of mystery, historical, women’s hen lit (sometimes called matron lit or granny lit, when referring to authors and female protagonists over a certain age), and I get a nice romance, too, though it’s not the bodice-ripping type. Linda and I admit we’re not literary here. But we’ll take commercial!

So, genre-wise, we’re a hybrid.

Does genre matter? Not to us. What matters is that people enjoy the read and that they get the chance to read Secrets of the Afikomen. Getting published would be a good way to accomplish this, of course. But these days there’s even not just one definition of getting published. More on that soon…

My story–the quest to find my Seder plate–was complicated enough. The vagaries of the book business these days serve up yet another mystery (but no romance).

I’ve used this as my (latest) working title, because my protagonist, Lily, gives her quest for the looted Seder plate a code name.  Lily is no Nancy Drew, VI Warshawski, or Aimée Leduc; she’s not a private investigator (either pro or amateur) or policewoman, just an ordinary Manhattan person who instigates a search over three continents when the missing object is something stolen from her family, Arguably, as a journalist she’s armed with skills applicable to this search.  And no shrinking violet is our Lily.  In fact, “Uncle,” Nachman Tanski, thinks codenaming it is way too cavalier for the seriousness of tracking old Nazis.  “This is not child’s play, like hunting for the Afikomen,” he says.

Secrets of the Afikomen is my fifth working title since I started to write the book.  In order they’ve been The Collector, Treasures & Values, Herbs Bitter & Sweet, and Return.  Here’s how I’ve traversed this part of the journey, and why:

The Collector: I was thinking Daniel Silva.  Most of his titles: The with Some Oblique Soubriquet: The Assassin, The Messenger, The Defector.  But I meant The Collector to refer to the Nachman Tanski character; in my early iterations of the book, he was a more influential player.  Besides, The Collector has been done and done in books and movies (including a new one, I think, but I still remember the Terrence Stamp/Samantha Eggar version).  However, The Collector lives! It’s still my computer file name for everything related to the book.

Treasures & Values harks to Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons thinking.  I’ve never read it and haven’t seen the movie (I only resorted to “reading” The Da Vinci Code on CD while recovering from a detached retina).  Dismissed early by prospective agent pitches.

Herbs Bitter & Sweet: Lily’s looking for a Seder plate.  Bitter herbs (maror) play a big role in the Seder ritual: usually, we use horseradish to depict the bitterness of life for the Hebrews under Pharoah, plus a bitter green vegetable and salt water to guarantee that we don’t forget that we were slaves.  Sweet—Lily’s story is not all bitter.  One agent thought this sounded like a book about organic food.  (Now I’m thinking it’s a potential title for a new Passover cookbook?)

Return: I love Ian McEwan’s Atonement and Saturday.  There is plenty of RETURN symbolism in the story, including the name of character Eliezer Ben Shuvah (Ben Shuvah in Hebrew meaning “son of return.”)  Pooh-poohed by another agent, who actually thought Herbs Bitter & Sweet wasn’t so bad.  (And you were wondering why this has been such a “trip”?)  Also, my developmental editor, Alan Rinzler, (www.alanrinzler.com) nixed it, too, and helped me select Secrets of the Afikomen from a list of possibilities.

If a book deal is in my future, it will be named whatever the publisher wants.