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- Mid-Week NotesThree quick things: Some writer pals and I agreed today to meet up every August to write together at a retreat starting in 2020. Does anyone else do something like this? I’ll be taking a beginning Yiddish class this fall … Continue reading →Barbara Krasner
- Mid-Week NotesThree quick things: I wrote with an AWA group on Saturday and came up with two new poems for my YA work in progress. There is an opening in the next cycle of The Whole Megillah Online Fiction Workshop. The … Continue reading →Barbara Krasner
- Author’s Notebook | Rachel’s Roses by Ferida WolffFerida Wolff, Rachel’s Roses, illustrated by Margeaux Lucas. New York: Holiday House, Available August 20, 2019. 112 pages. The Whole Megillah (TWM): What motivated you to write Rachel’s Roses? Ferida Wolff (FW): I was telling a friend about how my … Continue reading →Barbara Krasner
- Mid-Week NotesThree quick things: Word to the Wise: Beware of one-person publishing houses. ‘Nuff said. I’m trying to figure out the marketability of a YA novel I bill as “Pride & Prejudice Meets the Shtetl.” Your thoughts? The year is 1913. … Continue reading →Barbara Krasner
- Mid-Week NotesThree quick things: I didn’t expect to write poetry during my PhD class this week, but I am! It’s kind of ekphrastic based on sculpture, painting, photography as well as on music, particularly the sound of the oboe. I may … Continue reading →Barbara Krasner
- Mid-Week NotesThree quick things: I’ve hired a Jewish life expert in Poland to vet my novel under contract. On Brevity’s blog today, I read about DIY retreats. I’ve been doing this for years. At first, I booked myself into bed & … Continue reading →Barbara Krasner
- Mid-Week NotesThree quick things: I am thinking about iconography in children’s Holocaust literature. What are the typical symbols? I’ve also been thinking about children’s books about other genocides. There seems to be relatively few. Do any come to mind for you? … Continue reading →Barbara Krasner
- Mid-Week NotesThree quick things: Even while traveling and participating in fellowships, I am continuing to write poetry, one poem at a time. This is part of a new contemporary YA work in progress. At some point, I really need to focus … Continue reading →Barbara Krasner
- Mid-Week NotesThree quick things: My article on border crossing between the Nazi and Soviet spheres of interest in the fall of 1939 has been accepted for publication by a peer-reviewed academic journal. Through this writing exercise I learned to value: Once … Continue reading →Barbara Krasner
- Author’s Notebook | The Brave Princess and Me, written by Kathy KacerThe Brave Princess and Me, written by Kathy Kacer and illustrated by Juliana Kolesova, Second Story Press, September 2019, 32 pp., $18.95. The Whole Megillah (TWM): The Brave Princess and Me might just be the first Holocaust book for kids … Continue reading →Barbara Krasner
- Mid-Week Notes
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.