I know it has been a while since my last post, but between preparing for Pesach and cleaning up afterward, the time flew by. Another big time-drain has been preparing for my upcoming East Coast book tour. At three weeks long, this will be my longest, continuous book trip. Starting on April 19, when I fly to JFK, and concluding on May 10, when I come home from Orlando, I will be speaking at 22 venues in six states .
My first locations are close to New York City: Long Island [April 20-24], Westchester & Rockland Co [April 24-28], ending at JTS in Manhattan. From there I move south to the Philadelphia area [April 30 – May 5], including a lunch and learn at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College on May 2. Next come back-to-back lectures at two Women’s League of Conservative Judaism conferences on May 5, the Mid-Atlantic Region in the morning and Seaboard in the afternoon. Then a quick flight to Montgomery, Alabama on May 6, followed by a Sisterhood luncheon in Birmingham on May 7, and evenings in Gainesville and Orlando the next two nights. I’m hoping to squeeze in a visit to Harry Potter World before I fly home.
Interestingly, I’ve found that I receive better publicity and much higher attendance in these small Jewish communities than in the big ones. I’ve yet to get any reviews or write-ups in the Los Angeles Jewish press, despite this being my hometown, and apparently New York media is even harder to crack. In addition, there are a huge variety of Jewish venues, most of which attract only their own membership. Here in Los Angeles, it seems like most Jews won’t cross the street to hear a speaker at a different shul. Yet in places like Winston-Salem or Virginia Beach, where I’m the only game in town, the whole community comes out. So I will be curious which venue will have the largest, and the smallest, attendance. But the important thing is that you, my readers who live near where I’ll be appearing, come to hear me next month.
Years ago I used to consume science fiction in great quantities, but somehow I moved onto other kinds of novels. Then “Rav Hisda's Daughter, Book I: Apprentice: A Novel of Love, the Talmud, and Sorcery” was selected by Library Journal as Best Historical Fiction for 2012 and while on their website, I saw that Kim Stanley Robinson’s "2312" was chosen best Science Fiction. I waited 3 months for my name to get to the top of my library's hold list, and the wait was worth it.
This book is wonderfully creative and superbly crafted, with a tight plot that is not merely science fiction but political thriller, murder mystery, social commentary, and romance all in one story. Robinson takes us into a future world without any information dump, letting us learn about it as his characters experience it. His science is so plausible that I never had to suspend disbelieve, no matter how fantastic the various worlds and inhabitants become. All the various and varied threads come together to form a whole at the finale, with a happy and satisfying ending. And did I mention some very creative sex scenes?
As an author who must bring my readers into ancient worlds almost as bizarre as Robinson's future ones, I learned so much from his writing. For those who like hard science fiction [no fantasy elements], I highly recommend this novel. The author presents such a creative future that I'm filled with admiration and envy for his writing talents
What a wonderful and heart-warming video, a flash mob like no other.
A few weeks ago, I heard about the extraordinary speech that new Israel Knesset member Ruth Calderon gave to that body. It was extraordinary because she, a secular Jew and a woman, reminded the Knesset, and the many people who saw the speech on Youtube, that Talmud is not just the inheritance of some Jews, but of all Jews, including secular Israelis. A woman after my own heart, Dr. Calderon, after discovering Talmud as an adult, went on to earn a PhD in Talmud and found a Beit Midrash where men and women, secular and religious, can study these vital Jewish texts together.
How can I not embrace this woman who said, “when I first encountered the Talmud and became completely enamored with it, its language, its humor, its profound thinking, its modes of discussion, and the practicality, humanity, and maturity that emerge from its lines, I sensed that I had found the love of my life.”
For some time I searched in vain for an English version of her speech, and at last I discovered a subtitled version in an excellent Haaretz article, which also has a nice discussion of it. I wanted to cheer when she proceeded to quote Talmud [Ketubot 62b] about one of Rava’s students and his long-suffering wife to make a wonderful analogy that might help resolve the conflict in modern Israel between those who study Torah and those who support them. To hope that Dr. Calderon would mention Rav Hisda's daughter would be too much, but at least she had some good words about my heroine's husband, Rava. I think it is well worth 14 minutes of your time to listen.
For those who prefer the written word, here is an English translation, but I urge you to read it while listening to her voice in the original Hebrew.
As many people know, I started my own small press to publish Volume 1 of my "Rashi's Daughters" trilogy in 2005. I regularly get emails asking for advice on self-publishing, which I am loath to provide since the publishing world has changed so much since then. However I recently came across an excellent set of posts by Dave Bricker that help explain the subject much better than I could.
Rather than give publishing advice, I’ll explain what I did to make “Rashi’s Daughters” a success after I finally got it published. In order to get distribution into bookstores, vital back in 2005, I prepared a thorough marketing plan, a task that is even more important today. I started with a website and Yahoo group, but now I've added Google+, Facebook, Linked-In, Goodreads, and Amazon author pages. But those are passive efforts. I also actively sought out my target audience, Jewish women.
To reach them, I joined every Jewish women's organization I could find so I could: 1. get their magazines so I could send them review copies and take ads, and 2. approach their chapters and regions to speak at their meetings. Believe me, Hadassah and the like are much more likely to invite you to speak if you're a life member. I offered to speak without a fee if I could sell books myself afterwards. Considering all the Jewish women's groups, including synagogue Sisterhoods, who have monthly meetings and are desperate for free speakers, I had no shortage of invitations. In my first 18 months, I spoke at over 150 venues and sold over 25,000 copies, all while still working at my day job.
The big publishers keep track of such things, and when it came time for me to publish the second volume, there was a bidding war between Penguin, Harper Collins, and Crown for the trilogy. After much angst, I signed with Plume, a division of Penguin, for a six-figure advance and the rest is history. But I haven't stopped promoting [I'm not that famous yet], and I have spoken at over 600 venues since I began my author career. Now that the first volume of my new series, "Rav Hisda's Daughter," is out, I have over 50 speaking gigs lined up for the first 6 months of 2013 and will soon be scheduling fall events.