Sarah Darer Littman's Blog, page 3

I got the music in me - Part Deux

Back in January, I wrote about how learning to play the ukulele helped me find the way back to the musical child I once was, to rediscover a part of Sarah I’d lost along the way. I’m currently exploring the reasons why that happened in a compressed timeline for a middle grade project, codenamed “The Kate Book” for Kate Messner, who encouraged me to write it after reading the January post.

I made a start at a retreat in July, but then got into more revisions for INFLUENCED, my August 2025 Scholas...

Carpe F#$%@!g Diem!

The week before last, we were sitting on the sofa after dinner and My Love asked me when my book was due. I told him June 13th.

He sighed. “I’m going to make a proposal and you’re probably going to say no, but…” and proceeded to tell me the Rolling Stones were playing in Philly the following Tuesday (ie/ two days before my deadline) and there were tickets and he’d found a reasonably priced place to stay and we could take the Amtrak down.

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Why you should always check "factual" information on Tik Tok

Yesterday, a young (late 20’s) guy I know of Lebanese descent was telling me how he never wears sunscreen except on his tattoos to protect them from fading. I shared with him how in my teens I used to slather on baby oil to tan faster, but in my 60’s I regret it because of all the sunspots.

He laughed and said, “My people don’t burn.”

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Then he showed me a Tik Tok video of a guy saying that Israel h...

I got the music in me...

Once upon a time, there was musical child. She started playing the piano at a young age, and by the time she was 12 was playing this:

She started playing the cello at around eight. When she was 11, she auditioned for a weekend program at what was then Trinity College of Music and was accepted.

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Alas, the girl never went. The summer before she was supposed to start, her family moved back to the Uni...

Seeking a pathway to peace and understanding

Even before October 7th I’d been spending much less time on social media, and I’ve been much happier for it. I make sure to have several books downloaded and synched to my phone at all times, both serious and light. That way when I find myself mindlessly scrolling, I stop, close the app, and either open an e-book or send a “hey, how are you?” text to a friend.

Yes, I’ve missed news from friends, because I haven’t been assiduously checking in on the socials. Yes, I worry that my lack of posting ...

Schrödinger's "Whiteness"

From 2019 to 2021, while researching my last YA novel Some Kind of Hate, I spent way more time than I would have liked exploring white supremacist/nationalist/and NeoNazi spaces online.

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As anyone who has inhabited these spaces for any length of time knows, it is not great for one’s mental health.

One of the primary tenets of these groups is that Jews, no matter where they come from, be they Ashk...

Some Kind of Hate is a year old

A year ago today, the hardest book I’ve ever researched and written came out — and I’ve tackled some pretty tough topics. Eating disorders, online predators, cyberbullying, PTSD, deepfakes, hacking…and that’s just the books that got published.

Unfortunately, in the year since the book came out, I see that the antisemitic tropes that Declan learns from being radicalized to the far right are now coming from the left as well. I’m not talking about legitimate criticism of Israeli government policy in...

Carpe Gaudium*

Yesterday, was the 7th anniversary of being married to my love. The previous Monday was the 17th anniversary of our first date. I joke that I “test drove” him for 10 years, but the reality is that my mother’s sudden and unexpected death was what shook me out of the determination to never marry again. I’d told H that I wanted to be with him for the rest of my life, but I didn’t see the point of tying the knot.

The shock and agony of Mom’s sudden passing made me realize that I was holding on to pa...