Three quick things:
- I have signed a contract with MB Publishing in Maryland to publish my YA historical novel, Matchless. It’s slated for publication in May 2020. I think of it as Pride & Prejudice meets the Jewish shtetl in interwar Poland. This is a novel that’s had many lives, started in 1999!
- I’m looking for students for my online fiction and creative nonfiction classes. If interested, please contact me through Comments. One of the current fiction classes is in Cycle 14—we began in July 2016.
- Finally, my family history informs much of my creative writing. While I began my research nearly 30 years ago (yikes!) with rolls of microfilm, it’s never been easier to find your roots. Taking Ancestry’s DNA test last year has introduced me to new cousins and has reinforced the concept that we’re all connected. Now if only I knew who the people in this photo are. I could be looking at my great-grandmother and not even know it.
That’s it for this week. Have a good one and stay tuned for a Yom Hashoah post tonight about Why We Write and Publish Holocaust Books for Young Readers!
The Whole Megillah 
Congrats on your publishing contract! I can’t wait to read the book. “Pride & Prejudice meets the Jewish shtetl in interwar Poland.” That is some description!
Thanks so much, Rosi! You may remember this manuscript as Leaving Zaromb. It’s why I went to Poland in 2008 to my grandfather’s village northeast of Warsaw. My agent, who handles the estate of Isaac Bashevis Singer, said my book is very authentic. I love that, because nothing could replace the experience of standing on the graveled streets of my ancestral home.
Mazel Tov! The seed planting has grown a new harvest of opportunities.
Thanks so much, Dede! So kind of you to say. I hadn’t quite thought of it like that.
Hi Barbara, thanks for your very timely review of Holocaust books for kids–and Susan Lynn Meyer’s are among most well received and well written, beloved by my Book Club students for the past 3 years. The issue that comes up often is how can we broaden your readers’ understanding and identification with Judaism as not simply about these awful events–it is part of the big picture, and much can be learned as we fight intolerance and invoke our tradition’s commitment to social justice and freedom, for Jews and for all. Thanks so much for a terrific, once again, Megillah. Sheila
Sheila,
Holocaust books for young readers represent a fraction of books published with Jewish content and do not overshadow other offerings. For example, debut author Katia Raina has a book coming out in June, Castle of Concrete, about a teen in the last days of Soviet Russia trying to deal with her newfound Judaic ancestry.
Thanks for your continued interest and participation in The Whole Megillah!
Barbara