Rebecca Klempner's Blog, page 2

Double Dose of Good News!!!

Announcement #1:

I will be publishing a new Jewish sci-fi picture book with Kalaniot Books in the not-too-distant future. I’m feeling very blessed and can’t wait till I can share more about this book and the story of how it came to be. I will tell you this much: it took over a year of submissions before closing this deal, and I feel like it’s a message that perseverance and faith will pay off, even if it’s on God’s timeline, not ours. As soon as we have an illustrator announced, I’ll let you ...

The World is Chaos…But You Gotta Keep Writing

There are definitely times when I cannot write. From mid-November till January, I didn’t even try to write–I was ill and then recovering from surgery. I generally take the Hebrew month of Nissan off, first to prepare for Passover, then to celebrate it, then to recover from it. And my husband reminds me that every late fall-early winter I have a slump because I’m sensitive to the diminished sunlight.

However, I’ve discovered that one of the best things I can do for my mental health when things...

My Review of the Recent Sydney Taylor Bio

When I posted last week, I realized that I failed to post when my review of From Sarah to Sydney: The Woman Behind All-of-a-Kind Family ran in the Winter Issue of The Jewish Review of Books.

Many readers will recognize Sydney Taylor’s name either from her All-of-a-Kind books or from the award that bears her name, which is used to honor writers of Jewish children’s literature each year. This new biography–by the late June Cummins, completed by her colleague Alexandra Dunietz–describes a woman...

DRAMA!

So, it’s been a while since I posted, so I feel like y’all need an update. I was working on my NaNoWriMo project back in November — it was finishing the second half of my 2018 NaNo project — and I was making excellent progress when—

my gallbladder decided to cause me trouble. Like, serious trouble.

Once I realized what was going on (I went to the doctor after the second attack), I spent about a month eating very, very carefully lest I trigger more gallbladder attacks. Then I had surgery, w...

Adina at Her Best to Be Offered through PJ Our Way in November!

Here’s me, looking at the PDF with the digital proof of Adina at Her Best‘s PJ Our Way edition. IY”H, the tweenage subscribers will be able to choose Adina as their free book in just a couple weeks.

My husband claims I was smiling like a Cheshire Cat. I think I look happy, not creepy.

I’ve been in a bit of a mood lately, since I’d gotten out of my writing groove over the summer and I have received a slew of rejections (or just been ghosted) recently. But the email from PJ Our Way folks con...

On Hebrew psalms and English poems

I’m not sure that I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ve been doing #NachYomi, studying one chapter from the Prophets and Writing sections of the TaNaCh (Hebrew Bible) a day. Right now, we’re in the middle of the Book of Psalms (known in Hebrew as Sefer Tehilim), and as each psalm is written in verse, I’m learning a lot about poetry as we march to the end of the Book (we have about 2 and a half weeks left).

A translation of Psalm 23–probably the most famous psalm to English-speakers

Incidental...

Exciting news for my fellow female Orthodox writers!

On May 3rd and 4th, JWWS–the Jewish Women’s Writers’ Summit–will be taking place. JWWS is an online two-day event for frum women interested in all things writing, reading, publishing and networking. The seminar is now in its 10th year, its second online.  

Photo by Vlada Karpovich on Pexels.com

It includes presentations by leading names in the industry (see the schedule here), ways to book a private time with different publishers (see that here ), tons of inspiration, writing tips, networ...

Mea Culpa

As human beings, all of us make mistakes. Today’s post–my first in a long while and possibly my most important ever–is about some errors I’ve made and how I’m going to do my best to fix them.

Photo by Vie Studio on Pexels.com

Let’s rewind to 11 months ago. Along with BLM protests, many communities started reckoning with our past and present racist thoughts and actions. Among those communities was the writing community.

As I’ve mentioned before on this blog and elsewhere, racism is som...

Yes, I’ve been AWOL. But have a happy Purim anyway. :P

I will provide excuses for my blog absence later, but in the meantime, here is your 5781 Klempner family (yes, it’s a group effort) “fake news”letter.

purim-spiel-5781.klempnerDownload

Another Article Up on Jew in the City, This Time About Yom Kippur, Plus a Little Rosh Hashanah Recap

I’m hoping those of you who celebrate Rosh Hashanah enjoyed yourselves. We enjoyed the holiday here, even though it definitely was different than in previous years.

Those of you who know me in person or via social media may know that I’m a sucker for good puns, so the custom of Simanim Ilsa, eating symbolic foods often based on puns involving their names, is always fun for me at dinner on Rosh Hashanah. This year, almost everything I served the entire holiday had to do with the simanim. We a...