Fiction

Grace Paley, 1922 - 2007

But even more, even more than I admired the stories, which was a lot, I admired Grace Paley's activism and her moral courage.

Tillie Olsen, 1913 - 2007

A daughter of immigrants and a working mother starved for time to write, Tillie Olsen drew from her personal experiences to create a small but influential body of work.

November 3, 2010

'The Bookseller’s Sonnets': Andi L. Rosenthal's debut novel

Renee Ghert-Zand

March 2005 was the absolute worst month of Andi L. Rosenthal’s life. She broke off her engagement to her fiancé. Ten days later her father died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage. Then she lost her job.

Rosenthal was understandably lost. “It was [writing] the book that brought me back to life,” she said. “I couldn’t live in my life, so I made one up.” The book to which she referred is The Bookseller’s Sonnets, her debut novel, and the life she invented was that of Jill Levin, the book’s protagonist.

Topics: Fiction

June 22, 2010

A sex scene for Anne Frank?

Leah Berkenwald

Sharon Dogar, a British author known for her novels aimed at teenagers, has reimagined the Anne Frank story to include romance with Peter van Pels, and sex. Annexed: The Incredible Story of the Boy Who Loved Anne Frank is told through Peter's diary entries and covers the period in the annex as well as his experience in the concentration camps, which she reportedly told The Sunday Times was the most important part of her book. Important as it may be, an Anne Frank sex scene will undoubtedly be the focus of attention for the novel's release.

Topics: Fiction

April 19, 2010

Mary Gaitskill’s Liliths

Allison Gaudet Yarrow

Guggenheim Fellowship recipient and writer of fiction about women, strip poles and sexual guilt, Mary Gaitskill read a story at Franklin Park bar in Brooklyn on April 12 in which cuckolded political wives Silda Spitzer and Elizabeth Edwards become the Eves to Ashley Dupré’s and Rielle Hunter’s Liliths, and in doing so they take a muted sort of revenge by way of compulsory pedicures in Queens.

Topics: Fiction

Emma Lazarus

One of the first successful Jewish American authors, Lazarus was part of the late nineteenth century New York literary elite and was recognized in her day as an important American poet. In her later years, she wrote bold, powerful poetry and essays protesting the rise of antisemitism and arguing for Russian immigrants' rights. She called on Jews to unite and create a homeland in Palestine before the title Zionist had even been coined.

June 3, 2009

Musings on Rebecca Rubin, Our Jewish American Girl

Jordan Namerow

After years in the making, she's finally arrived: The Jewish American Girl Doll. We've been hearing a lot about her over the past week and, on Sunday, she hit the store shelves.

Topics: Fiction

"Sunday Jews" Book Cover by Hortense Calisher, 2002

Birth of "writer's writer" Hortense Calisher

December 20, 1911

The daughter of a Southern Jewish perfume-maker and a German immigrant, author Hortense Calisher was born on December 20, 1911 in New York City

Premiere of the musical "Show Boat," based on a novel by Edna Ferber

December 27, 1927

When Edna Ferber published Show Boat in 1926, she was already an established writer, with eleven books, two stage plays, and a Pulitzer Priz

Ayn Rand delivers manuscript of "The Fountainhead" to her publisher

December 31, 1942

Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead (delivered to her publisher on December 31, 1942), was the first of Rand's novels to win a wide following for the p

American women mark death of British author Grace Aguilar

November 23, 1847

A group of Jewish women in Charleston, South Carolina deplored the death of British author Grace Aguilar as a "national calamity."

Death of Ilona Karmel, literary chronicler of the Holocaust

November 30, 2000

When Ilona Karmel died on November 30, 2000, she was remembered as the author of the novel, An Estate of Memory.

Los Angeles film debut of Anzia Yezierska's "Hungry Hearts"

December 3, 1922

In her short stories and novels, author Anzia Yezierska focused on the challenges faced by young Jewish women trying to navigate between their im

"The Collected Stories" by Grace Paley, 1998

Birth of author Grace Paley

December 11, 1922

Grace Paley, author, feminist and “somewhat combative pacifist and cooperative anarchist,” was born on December 11, 1922 in the Bronx.

"I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" Book Cover, Joanne Greenberg

Birth of "I Never Promised You a Rose Garden" author, Joanne Greenberg

September 24, 1932

Author Joanne Greenberg was born in Brooklyn, New York on September 24, 1932. Often writing under the pseudonym Hannah Green, Greenberg has written 13 novels and four collections of short stories.