Mid-Week Notes

Inspired by and with permission of Erika Dreifus, I am initiating a weekly post of three quick things on Wednesdays.

1. I have signed a contract with Kar-Ben Publishing of Lerner Publishing Group for a middle-grade novel in verse about the MS St. Louis, 1939. Right now it’s called 37 Days. This book has gone through so many lives, starting with nonfiction in 2010 after I interviewed eight survivors. It then became adult poetry in seven voices, then back to middle grade in three voices, then ultimately to one voice. Along the way, I fictionalized, which was liberating. The novel is slated for Spring 2021 publication.
2. I’ve been named a 2019 Holocaust Educational Foundation Fellow at Northwestern University’s 24th Annual Summer Institute on the Holocaust and Jewish Civilization. The faculty line-up is outstanding, including Peter Hayes, Natalia Aleksiun, Sarah Cushman, Sara Horowitz, Dagmar Herzog, and Barry Trachtenberg. I’ve also been selected to attend the 2019 Curt C. and Else Silberman Seminar for Faculty, Displacement, Migration, and the Holocaust this summer at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. So, my pursuit of the PhD in Holocaust & Genocide Studies at Gratz College is going well and I’m just now completing my first year of course work.
3. Finally, I’m a literary agent at Olswanger Literary LLC. I represent authors of both adult and children’s books. I’m particularly fond of historical and Jewish material. But if you’re writing history, be forewarned. I’m a real stickler for accuracy and research as well as polished writing.

That’s it for this week. Have a zissen Pesach!