Browsing CategoryIsrael

The Best Place on Earth in Hebrew (and other news)

Israel's Book Week is the most festive book fair I've ever known. As a child it was the highlight of my summer, so I was so excited to participate as an author this year
Moshe Ron, the Hebrew edition's editor, at my Tel Aviv launch
An interview in Yediot Aharonot
With Moshe Ron at Israel's Book Week
I ran into my junior high penpal, Shirit!
With Hanital Swisa, Am Oved's CEO
At my Jerusalem launch with the lovely Iris Eliya Cohen, a bestselling author in Israel
The Israeli cover!
So happy at Am Oved's booth at the book fair
The book made it into the Bestseller list!

I have not blogged in ages, but I have the best excuse. I’ve been writing! I’ve been hard at work on my memoir in essays. In fact, it is near finished. Which, of course, leads to a myriad of new anxieties. It just never stops, does it? I’ve been so consumed with work that I neglected to write about the amazing month I spent in Israel this June, launching my book with Am Oved. Am Oved has been my dream publisher ever since I was a little kid. I love their little books, with the red stamp on the top corner,…

Continue Reading

Some Israeli Love

The print article from Haaretz
My favourite photo from the photo shoot for Haaretz. Photo by Noa Yaffe

I can’t keep track. Life has been moving fast, so wonderfully and strangely fast. I keep meaning to take the time to write but then I do laundry and make dinner and take care of a toddler instead. So here, quickly, are some links from the homeland. It has been so exciting for me to be recognized there finally, on the heels of the Sami Rohr Prize announcement. And even more exciting that it all happened while I was there. I loved this beautiful article in Haaretz (only for Hebrew speakers, I’m afraid), enjoyed speaking to the illustrious Ilene Prusher on TLV1 Radio, and this wonderfully written…

Continue Reading

Writing about War

I haven’t been blogging. I have good reasons and bad reasons. The good reason is that I’ve spent the summer writing up a storm, working on my memoir. I was fortunate enough to receive a grant that made it possible: I rented a shared writing space outside my home, paid someone to help with childcare, and three times a week I go to my little office and write write write. It feels wonderful. On days when I don’t write, we enjoy summer in the city, spending time in parks and pools and patios. We also spent beautiful two weeks on…

Continue Reading

The Best Place on Earth is One Year Old!

How could it have been a year already? The Best Place on Earth is one year old today! I remember that this day last year was just as gloomy and miserable as today is. I remember feeling anxious and a little bit crazy and not as joyous as I had wanted to feel (that elated feeling came the following day, at my launch, which was hands down the best party I ever had) I remember that that morning I struggled to zip up my parka, which was starting to feel pretty tight on my hugely pregnant belly. I also remember…

Continue Reading

Letting Go of Books and Houses

José Saramago, Harper Lee, George Orwell and J.D. Salinger
Anne of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Oh, how I loved this book!
Copies of my father's poetry book
Unreturned library books
Alice in Wonderland (also taken from the library)
A Ben Guryon biography perhaps?
In the back of Nissim's truck
A book by Rabindranath Tagore

Last week my mother and her partner moved to a new temporary home, leaving behind the house she had lived in for the past thirty years, the house my father had planned and built before he passed away. Sean, Baby and I moved with them, at least for the next few days before going back to Canada. I wrote the following post in December, when the idea that the house would soon be torn down didn’t fully sink in. Then I got busy—packing, cleaning, teaching workshops, visiting friends and family—and I never got around to publishing this. Now, one day…

Continue Reading

Mini-Tour in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa and Other News

Exciting news! I’m going on another mini-tour on the first week of February. I will be reading from The Best Place on Earth and speaking about my experience as an Israeli of Yemeni descent and about writing Mizrahi stories. There will also be some time for a Q & A and books for sale. Oh, and did I mention that it will take place in licensed venues? So you can have a glass of wine and a snack with it? The event is called “Say it Again, Say Something else,” after one of the stories in the book. New Israel…

Continue Reading

Two Workshops in Israel

I’m excited to be doing two writing workshops in Israel this month! As a Hebrew-speaking Israeli writer who writes in English I’m in a unique position. I still feel strongly and deeply connected to my Israeli identity, but I don’t really belong in the Israeli literary community. I’ve learned to accept it, and realized that I can be Israeli first and still be a Canadian writer, but a part of me—reminiscent of the young girl who grew up in Israel, wrote in Hebrew and dreamt of publishing a book— longs to be accepted in my country of birth. Since The…

Continue Reading

CBC The Next Chapter with Shelagh Rogers

I am so excited to be on this week’s Next Chapter with Shelagh Rogers on CBC. I recorded the short segment the morning after my launch, which meant that I could hardly sleep that night. Not only was I  still buzzing from the amazing evening, I also had a case of ESL anxiety, which comes over me sometimes when I need to answer questions on the spot. I worry that my grammar will fail me, my vocabulary will abandon me, I’ll forget how to speak English and end up sounding inarticulate in a distinctly non-writerly way. Of course, as often…

Continue Reading

More Reviews!

It’s been a surreal and wonderful experience, reading reviews of The Best Place on Earth. After spending all this time writing in my room, in front of a screen, to an imaginary audience, having people read the book and write about it, is kind of extraordinary. Two recent reviews really moved me with their generous and attentive reading of the book and their thoughtful observations. Sharon Chisvin wrote a great review for the Winnipeg Free Press, calling the book “brutally honest,” “smart, sad and sincere,” describing the characters as “achingly human and almost flawlessly fashioned,” and quoting from segments of the…

Continue Reading