I Have My Favorite Commandment. What’s Yours?

I used to hate the Ten Commandments. I hated Charlton Heston. I hated anything that smacked of authoritarian, paternalistic, overbearing high-and-mighty lording-it-over-you-ism, especially if it tried to tell me I couldn’t watch the Yankees on the Sabbath. Last week marked the observance of Shavuot, which celebrates the revelation of the Ten Commandments, and is the …

75 Years of Controversy: The Israel Question for the Children of Holocaust Survivors

My father was a Holocaust survivor, but his relationship to Israel was complicated. And so is mine. The image above is of an affidavit my father had to sign attesting to thefact that he had no nationality. He was a man with no passport, because theNazi state had stripped him of his nationality for the …

The Silk Factory Threads Forward

In two weeks, you'll be able to actually hold The Silk Factory: Finding Threads of My Family's Holocaust Story, in your actual hands. You can pre-order now, and get the ebook for the ultra-low price of $2.99. Pre-ordering my book really, really helps because it tells the Amazon algorithm that I have an audience and …

My Father Never Told

(Please order my forthcoming memoir, The Silk Factory: Finding Threads of My Family's True Holocaust Story.) When you tell on someone, it’s usually a bad thing. But there was something great that my father never talked about. But why? My father, a German Jew – probably more German than Jewish in his everyday life, but …

Yom HaShoah and the Silk Factory

Today marks Yom HaShoah, when we remember the Holocaust and its victims. Today is also the day my memoir becomes available for pre-order. It’s an odd feeling, and even calling it a Holocaust memoir is a very strange feeling, because The Silk Factory isn’t so much as Holocaust memoir as it is a memoir of …

Ineffable Greatness

Paul Mirat alongside a portrait of his grandfather, Paul Mirat. How hard do you figure it is to be great at any one thing? I mean, how hard is it to become a great painter? It would take a lifetime. How about horse breeder? Probably another lifetime. Or how about getting elected mayor of your …

Publisher: Found

I just finished reading The Girl Who Counted Numbers, by Roslyn Bernstein, and I can't say enough about it. It's a profound storytelling exercise in showing how history affects us in personal ways, whether we want it to or not. That's a topic I also explore in my forthcoming memoir for Amsterdam Publishers, The Silk …

Story: Gold Digger

Druid Hill Park in Baltimore is a shambling place crossed by potted roads and occupied by stands of trees and a museum and ballfields labeled one through six and there are old sedans parked alongside curvy curbs and you can just feel the potential for nefarious shit happening all over the place. This is where …

Digressing with Vince Passaro

Vince Passaro is the author of the novel Crazy Sorrow, which you can order here. During this podcast we talk about the rare dinosaur that is Gordon Lish, when and if to pursue an MFA, the shallowness of most editors, his hatred of doing anything except writing, and how smaller presses are going to save …

Digressing with Dawn Raffel

An insight I had during this wonderful podcast with Dawn Raffel: Editors have a low opinion of the reader's intellect and her ability to leap from one idea to another, while the writer has an inflated opinion of the reader's ability to guess intent. Editors want writers to connect the dots with thick, confident pencil …

Digressing with Myself, Imposter’s Syndrome, and God

Thanks to Vipal Monga for sharing this song with me. There are days when you just need to know that things can be sweet and dandy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcKYZbDjBEA Today was one of those days when I wonder what the hell I'm doing here anyway, a place way more hopeless than imposter's syndrome. And while I'm at …

Digressing with Michael Seidlinger

I had a great conversation last month with Michael Seidlinger, a prolific author, professor and onetime indie lit publisher. During our podcast, Seidlinger shared his strategy for writing fiction and keeping his head above the poverty water line. We also discussed the current state of the book publishing industry, and how the independent presses are …