Ruth Tenzer Feldman's Blog, page 7

Hanukkah for Babies, Kids, and T9D Readers

Yes, there are always new spins on the old Hanukkah tale, as you see from this headline from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Thank you, Penny Schwartz, for including The Ninth Day. Get Penny’s full list and reviews here.

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Thanksgivukkah? Calendars Mesh Frequently!

This year, Thanksgiving Day coincides with the start of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. Suddenly, bingo! We have the menurkey (a combination of a turkey and a nine-branched menorah). We have recipes that feature both cuisines and we have greeting cards galore.

The two holidays came close in 1964, as I found out when I wrote The Ninth Day. Hanukkah started on the Sunday after Thanksgiving then. I hear-tell that the next time the two holidays mesh as well as they do in 2013 will be about 70,000...

OPB and My Urge to Lie. Thanks, Dan!

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting with Dan Sadowsky, of Oregon Public Broadcasting. Dan read The Ninth Day in record time, spent half a morning with me at Tea Zone, and showed his humor and patience while photographing me in the North Park Blocks. Here’s the resulting Q&A. Why Calvin Coolidge? Dan knows. Read the interview, and you’ll know, too. I’ll be reading from The Ninth Day at the Oregon Jewish Museum on Nov. 12 at 7:30 and Powell’s-Cedar Hills on Nov. 15 at 7pm. And that’s no lie.

The po...

The Real Stutterer Reads Aloud

I remember when I was the person on this jetty, the girl who was happiest when she was mute and terrified of reading aloud in class. I remember going to my first speech therapist when I was five and my last speech therapist when I was in my forties. The girl on the jetty will be a part of me as I read passages from The Ninth Day at the Oregon Jewish Museum on November 12th and at Powell’s Cedar Hills Crossing on November 15th, passages in which a stuttering teen struggles to spit out a cohere...

Who’s Waldo? Where Is He? Why Do I Care?

The next stop for Blue Thread, The Ninth Day, and me is the Lincoln County Historical Society in Newport, Oregon. On Saturday, October 19th, at 2 p.m., we’ll schmooze about the upsides and the perils of historical fiction. Am I playing fair when I try to confuse you about what’s real and what isn’t? Why do I bother to create a world that partially existed? Why not make it up completely? Or stick entirely to the facts? What’s the difference between fact and truth?

The forecast is for a sunny da...

I Got a Kick Out of Wordstock

I’ll admit it. When the sun is shining in Portland, it’s hard to stay indoors all day at the Oregon Convention Center. Still, I was delighted to take the stage with Francesca Lia Block and read from The Ninth Day. I switched from conventional 1964 dress to “hippie” 1964 dress on stage, and this photo shows me in a bit of both. It was fun getting up close and personal with Wordstock’s red chair, but even more fun meeting so many readers and writers. Here’s a shout out to Sadie, who read Blue T...

Interlaced? Indeed!

Master Interlacer: Einstein

While Florrie Steinbacher has been posting away on my blog, I’ve combined bluethreadbook.com with ruthtenzerfeldman.com to bring you my “new and improved” Web site. From now on, you and I will have one main place to connect and converse. Thanks, Florrie!

I’ve been reading Heretic’s Heart, �Margot Adler‘s memoir of the 1950s through the early 1970s. How I wish I had gone to Margot’s elementary school in Greenwich Village! Here’s how she describes the place:

“City and C...

What’s Next for Little Mim?

Thank you for listening to my ramblings about my dear Miriam Josefsohn from the moment she stepped off the train in Oakland in 1912 until the day she died just weeks before Little Mim was born. The strength of our friendship gave me the power and determination to stay in your world all this past summer.

Frankly, I can’t stand the thought of leaving you just like that�poof!�and I’m gone. I’ll be on Twitter for now (@florrie_st). A real person named Kate Burkett has compiled my ramblings into wh...

What’s Next for Little Mim?

Thank you for listening to my ramblings about my dear Miriam Josefsohn from the moment she stepped off the train in Oakland in 1912 until the day she died just weeks before Little Mim was born. The strength of our friendship gave me the power and determination to stay in your world all this past summer.

Frankly, I can’t stand the thought of leaving you just like that—poof!—and I’m gone. I’ll be on Twitter for now (@florrie_st). A real person named Kate Burkett has compiled my ramblings into wh...

45. What about My Promise?

We were in the middle of the twentieth century. Approximately. Henry Friis could have told me the precise middle, but then he would have told me that time, the way I thought of time, didn’t exist. He and Mim (oh, how I missed her!) would have had a lot to talk about.

There was nothing middle-of-the-road about 1950, though. That was the year of taking sides. Joseph McCarthy saw to that. A U.S. Senator no less, and I thought Congress had more sense. McCarthy claimed that the State Department was...