Many of you have known or worked with editor Deborah Brodie. She passed away on June 27 after a battle with cancer.
Read the Publisher’s Weekly obituary>>>
The Whole Megillah- #52snapshots 2022 | Week 25 — The BodyI’m now a week behind in writing these memoir vignettes. So while this is technically Week 26, I’m offering up Week 25 here today. The prompt calls for writing about the body and I chose to write about my mother’s … Continue reading →Barbara Krasner
- Mid-Week Field Notes–June 29, 2022Some very quick things: I have a Zoom session with my agent later this week to discuss my writing career. I feel like I’m standing at the crossroads, deciding which way to go. In the Kenyon Review online poetry workshop, … Continue reading →Barbara Krasner
- Mid-Week Field Notes–June 22, 2022Some very quick things: The Kenyon Review poetry workshop doesn’t seem to accommodate what I need to do for my novel in verse, but it is helping with standalone poems and is introducing me to some very awesome poets. I’m … Continue reading →Barbara Krasner
- #52snapshots 2022 | Week 24 — Beggars’ NightThe Week 24 prompt is called Beggars’ Night–the night before Halloween that we called Mischief Night. The prompt calls for writing to describe refusal. I thought about the time my parents stashed me at my father’s father’s house a block … Continue reading →Barbara Krasner
- Mid-Week Field Notes–June 15, 2022Some very quick things: One of the things I learned at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum faculty seminar in the last two weeks was how to read and analyze photographs. I used the methodology this past Sunday with my Writing … Continue reading →Barbara Krasner
- Author’s Notebook | I Will Protect You by Eva Mozes Kor with Danica DavidsonKor, Eva Mozes, with Danica Davidson. I Will Protect You: A True Story of Twins Who Survived Auschwitz. New York and Boston: Little Brown, 2022. 226 pp. $17.99 The Whole Megillah (TWM): How did this project come about? Danica Davidson … Continue reading →Barbara Krasner
- #52snapshots 2022 | Week 23 — The OutsiderThis week’s prompt requires writing about someone who didn’t fit in. Frankly, that could be anyone and everyone. I chose to write about a high school classmate who definitely marched to the beat of her own drummer. She was not … Continue reading →Barbara Krasner
- Mid-Week Field Notes–June 8, 2022Some very quick things: One of my short stories, one I felt pretty good about, received three rejections in the last week. I’ve lobbed it into a critique service, although in retrospect, I should probably have “critiqued” it myself. I … Continue reading →Barbara Krasner
- Mid-Week Field Notes–June 1, 2022Some very quick things: My essay about my grandfather and his matchmaker postcard keeps getting rejected. I’m going to take it next to my AWA memoir group over the next couple of months and get some feedback. Still working on … Continue reading →Barbara Krasner
- #52snapshots 2022 | Week 21 — Who Are Your PeopleFor Week 21, the assignment is to describe a group you belong to. I chose to write about the Jewish community of Kearny and North Arlington. Lately I’ve been thinking about how the synagogue proved to be the center of … Continue reading →Barbara Krasner
- #52snapshots 2022 | Week 25 — The Body
The Whole Megillah 
I cannot express how kind Deborah was to me. She reached out and expected nothing in return. She sent me writing exercises, asked me what I really wanted to do in my work (she was sure I could write a novel, and was determined to help me figure out what it was)…she was just so all-around encouraging and supportive and funny. At shiva people laughed about her sharp tongue, but I only got it once — when I accidentally called her Deb.
Hamakom Yinachem.
Deborah was the first professional editor to pull me out of a slush pile and declare I had a voice, and from that day on, became a person I could count on for a clean response, with honest encouragement. Her course at the New School, which I took early in my career, relieved us all of our self-consciousness. In her classroom, contrary to her editorial reputation, we all could fall flat on our faces, and pierce the boundaries which had held us back.
What a loss to the children’s book world, especially at a time when a voice for quality and authenticy is so sorely needed. I didn’t know Deborah well but thought of her as a kindred soul. Baruch dayan ha emet.