Rebecca Klempner's Blog, page 12
April 7, 2015
Need a little reading material for the intermediate days of Passover?
The Jewish Press published my magic realism (laced with sci fi) short “An Old Fashioned Girl” a couple weeks ago in its Olam Yehudi supplement. Unfortunately, I was expecting it to run a week later and only found out after that week’s edition had left the stands.
The good news is that my friend (and fellow writer) Yehudis Litvak helped me locate the story in the online edition. You can read it here.
It was my absolute favorite story to wr...
March 31, 2015
Pesach Limericks for Maggid (because I need a break from my kitchen right now)
An oldie-but-goody. And I’d love to hear some limericks by my readers…just post in the comments.
Originally posted on Rebecca Klempner:
On the way outta there!
Many of us have memories of childhood seders. Even when the memories are fond ones (like these shared recently by Jessica Soffer on the Prosen People blog), we were often confused by the Maggid section of the Haggadah. I’ve pried myself from the kitchen to share some wacky Passover poetry to read a the seder during Maggid,...
March 30, 2015
Too busy prepping for Passover to write a full post, but…
Here’s my new story, “Mick Revises a Love Story” in JewishFiction.Net’s new issue, out today.It’s a subversion of the classic Western love story, which I just think is bonk. Wanna read it?Just click the link and go!
March 23, 2015
Journaling exercise: confronting whatever is keeping you from writing, in writing
So, as I mentioned a few posts ago, I’ve got some personal issues going on at the moment that held up my writing for a while. Basically, I wrote no new fiction for three weeks, and very little of anything else printable, which for some people sounds like nothing, but for me was pretty traumatic. About half the time, my brain felt like mush. The other part of the time, I felt anxious and stressed-out — which is not a state in which I can be very creative. I spent inordinate amounts of time alt...
March 18, 2015
Posted by Anonymous
Okay, this is really not being posted by Anonymous. It’s plain ole me.
Writers live in the same world as the rest of you, which means we have to live with the people who read our work.
Yesterday Hevria began to post a series entitled “Truth And Dare.” The first post was by the outstanding writer, Chaya Kurtz. Entitled, “Backlash,” Chaya described the artistic desire to bare her opinions for all the world to see, but how when she did this, she suffered from the subsequent reactions that reader...
January 8, 2015
Sol Stein sold me on “The Actor’s Studio Method for Developing Drama in Plots”
Some of my regular readers might notice that my usual response to frustration in the midst of a writing projectis to start borrowing writing books from the library and systematically going through them (in addition toeating chocolate, cleaning, and spending too much time on Facebook as an avoidance strategy).
A new favorite writing book, chock full of original, well-informed, and practical advice.
I’m two volumes into my current stack of five. The last couple of days, I’ve been reading Stein on...
January 4, 2015
Sometimes it pays to be a fan…
Last week, The Jewish Home L.A. published an article I wrote about Hevria, an online lit mag/blog that I’ve loved from its first post last summer.
One day, after contemplating how much I would like to see Hevria’s message of Torah and non-judgmental discourse spread, and thinking about how fun it would be to write about its writers, I pitched an article based on the website to The Jewish Home L.A.‘s editor. Since the publication is based in L.A., I focused on the website’s contributors who liv...
December 29, 2014
And the winner of my Hanukkah Hoopla giveaway is…
Last week, I hosted a post for Hanukkah Hoopla, and offered a free book from my stash of review copies for one lucky person who placed a comment on my post. The winner of the book is…
Marilyn Stoch!
I’ll be emailing our winner to find out which book she prefers so I can get it to her ASAP!
My favorite books of 2014
I’m pretty much a book addict. I’ll read almost any genre. Occasionally, I’ll ignore essentials like eating, drinking, and using the restroom in order to finish a scene I’m reading. I’ve never taken one of those Goodreads challenges to read a specific number of books because I’m already reading well over a hundred books a year. Setting goal just seems pointless for me. (Notice I said, “for me.” I think other people can benefit from them greatly because it encourages them to read more or to re...
December 22, 2014
Writers wondering what goes on in the minds of other writers
A couple weeks back, KristenM. Ploetz posted several questions she wished she could have answered by other writers. The post has generated a bit of buzz, with replies by two bloggers I admire,Nina Badzin and Rivki Silver (which is where I first heard of it).
(And then Rivki made me cry happy tears by saying she admired my work. I love her site, so the feeling is mutual.)
I found both the original post and the follow-ups fascinating. A lot of what all three bloggers had to say was about self-ide...
