Guest Blogger Michelle Cameron on fictionalizing her family's Jewish history in her new novel

Here's why I love Twitter. I find an interesting group of writers, jump in on the conversation, and sooner or later, one of the group and I discover, Hey, we live five miles apart! Which is exactly what happened when I "met" Michelle Cameron there last winter. Then we connected in person at a nearby book festival. Michelle's novel, out this month, is The Fruit of Her Hands (Simon & Shuster), and it's getting nice reviews.

Please welcome Michelle Cameron.

I’m a writer of Jewish-themed books. My debut historical novel, The Fruit of Her Hands, is the story of Shira of Ashkenaz, the devout wife of a renowned rabbi who confronts rising anti-Semitism in medieval Europe. My second novel, now with my agent, takes place during the Judean exile in ancient Babylon. And I’m researching a third, set during the Maccabean era (think Chanukah).


So you may be drawing some conclusions about me: That I’m probably religious myself. Or, if I’m not observant in the wig-wearing, don’t-drive-on-the-Sabbath Orthodox kind of way, I’m definitely an active member of a synagogue. You may think that if I came to your house, you would want to ask me if I kept kosher before bringing out the coffee and cake.

But you would be wrong.


Hurriedly – because I don’t want anyone (especially not potential readers!) to get the wrong impression – I'll add that I deeply admire and even envy people who have strong religious convictions. Having studied their personalities in the guise of my protagonists, I understand the spiritual well from which they draw strength and meaning. But my own relationship with my religion and that unknowable conception called God is considerably less defined than that of my characters.

So, why write “Jewish-themed” books? Why not just historical novels?


One answer is that, whether I am devoutly Jewish or not, it is my heritage. I am descended from a long line of rabbis, all the way back to the 1200s. Over the generations, my family experienced discrimination and suspicion from their Gentile neighbors, and sought to escape it by taking part in the great Jewish migration from France and Germany to Russia and Poland. Many fled pogroms, immigrating to America. Others helped drain the swamps and build the first kibbutzim in early 19th Century Palestine. And about half of my mother’s family perished in the Nazi camps.

With a family background like that, what else would speak so clearly to me and mean so much? If the old writer’s dictate, “write what you know," is valid, then that's what I am doing. These are the family stories I heard while sitting at my mother’s table


Another answer is my somewhat unique education. I know my Jewish history. My mother, a fervent Zionist, moved us to Israel when I was just turning 15. In an Israeli high school, I got a heady dose of Israeli history all the way back to the Bible, which we also had to study seriously.

But perhaps what really moves me to write about Jewish conflicts and characters is the nature of the Jewish religion itself. In The Fruit of her Hands, from early childhood Shira is drawn to learning Talmud, despite its being forbidden to women at that time. One of her greatest joys is when she can study with her father and then her husband, and she passes on that passion to her own daughters. Studying the great Jewish questions is a life-long endeavor in which there are no fixed answers.


There is an ethical base to the Jewish religion which resonates with me as well. One of my regrets is that the concept of “tikkun olam” – repairing the world through your ethical actions, a concept which I try to embody in my own life ― was anachronistic to the Middle Ages. So I had to edit out all references to it. But the spirit of being able to heal the world through charity and deed is still very much a part of the novel.

In one part of the novel, my heroine, Shira, wonders why she could not give up her Judaism in the face of unrelenting persecution. But then she remembers all of the wonderful, warm, family times, in which religion played such a significant part, and she realizes these are the moments “that give her life shape and meaning.” In writing The Fruit of Her Hands, I was writing a part of my family’s story and giving voice to their unwavering commitment to the Jewish faith.


[Notes from Lisa: To be entered in the book give-away, leave a comment and a way to reach you - email address or link to a site where you can be contacted. (You must have a North American postal address for shipment.) Contest ends midnight PDT, September 29.

You can also ask Michelle a question in the comment section (today only) and she'll drop by to answer it.

If you can't wait, by all means, order your own copy of her new book. If you live in New Jersey, you can probably catch Michelle at a reading or discussion event soon.]

Every writer needs a creed. Here's mine.

About five years ago, when my career needed a major shake-up after a lengthy hiatus for child-rearing, I decided I would do two things:

1. Stretch, especially in ways that I think, for various reasons, are off-limits to me.
and
2. Say YES.

Usually, the YES part comes first. "Yes I can do that," I say, with a confident smile on my face, all the while thinking, "How the hell I am going to do THAT?" Still, these two mandates have led me to many great places. Lately, I've added a third: Do what scares me.

Which leads me this: I'm writing fiction. Yup, three (probably very bad) rough drafts of short stories have somehow appeared on my desk. It doesn't look like "this fiction thing" is going away; but it also isn't going to take center stage. So, I'm just engaging with it, writing a bit every day, saying yes. The scary part: I've always understood how important it is to incorporate some of the elements of fiction when writing nonfiction; BUT discovering that the opposite is not entirely true -- that some of the foundation stones of memoir and personal essay don't translate to the act of writing of fiction -- was quite disconcerting at first.

I also said YES this month to judging a writing contest for a local arts organization, and to co-chairing plans for a master class series for MEWS (Montclair Editors & Writers Society). Neither of these two things fall into the scary department, except maybe in the sense of finding the time. But I don't sleep that much.

By the way, these three mandates don't always turn out fabulously. Road bumps have ensued. I've made a few dumb choices. Rejections seem to multiply. But they seem manageable. So, not so scary.

On the other hand, the high school reunion coming up in five weeks – the one I still can't decide to attend or not? Now, that's scary.

Son-day Supplement

My 11-year-old wrote a poem the first week at school. I asked him if he would like to publish it on my blog (hoping my readers might indulge me this one time), and he accepted. I didn't help with a single syllable.

I am

I am caring and daring.
I wonder what the world would be like without electricity.
I hear the planets talking.
I see an alien space ship.
I want the world to be cleaner.
I am caring and daring.

I pretend to use the force.
I feel a castle made of chocolate.
I touch soft fluffy clouds.
I worry about my brother.
I cry about my grandfather’s death.
I am caring and daring.

I understand what laws mean.
I say all are equal.
I dream of inventing a new type of computer.
I try to help my friends.
I hope I will live for a very long time.
I am caring and daring.

- Paul

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Book Festivals, Book Blogs, Brown Blockbuster to Buoy Bookstores. And, some other stuff.

• Updates on what's new in the world of literary journals, as well as other issues of interest to writers who submit to journals, are posted at the New Pages blog.

• The Poets Forum on Contemporary Poetry is scheduled for October 15-17 in New York City, and discounted passes are available until Sept 15.

• These three are free:
The Brattleboro (VT) Literary Festival runs October 2 – 4.
September 26 is the date for the National Book Festival on the Mall in Washington, D.C.
On the West Coast, the San Diego City College International Book Fair runs Sept. 28 – Oct. 3.

• If you have a favorite book blog, check out the list of nominees and vote here until the end of the day on Sept. 12 (that's tomorrow). Speaking about these blogs, one critic wonders if they have a future.

• He may not be your cup of literary tea, but Dan Brown's new novel, debuting this week, has booksellers nationwide bracing for vigorous activity.

• How do editors at the New York Times Book Review make their selections? Some inside info here.

• I was sad to hear that Garrison Keillor had suffered a minor stroke this week, and hope he recuperates fully.

• You can read some wonderful short memoir pieces, by various writers, at the Authentic Writing Stories blog.



Have a great weekend.

The Joy of Julie, Julia, and The Joy of Cooking

When I saw the Julie + Julia movie recently, I loved the scene in which Julia Child finally comes face to face with Irma Rombauer, the author whom she's admired and idolized, the author whose book, The Joy of Cooking, had already spurred Child to train as a chef and agree to co-write Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Child discovers that Rombauer is not the precise, serious, erudite author and exacting trained chef Child had imagined, but someone more like Child herself – a woman who loves to cook and loves to write and is rather quirky and has grit. But what really interested me was Rombauer's explanation that, even though the book by then (1947) was a huge bestseller with a major publishing house, it had started its original publication life in 1931 when Rombauer used her meager life savings to "have it printed" (translation: she self-published, or in the parlance of the day, used a vanity press.) Recently, Joy of Cooking was "selected by The New York Public Library as one of the 150 most important and influential books of the twentieth century," according to Simon & Shuster.

I love how Child seems to visibly convey something important not-yet-published writers need to know -- that published writers are not so different from us. They just kept at it and kept at it and invested themselves and believed in their project. And, I liked the way, without praising or condemning the concept of self-publishing, it was just another fact about the book.

I have lots of opinions about self-publishing but mostly it boils down to: it all depends on the book, the topic, the author, and his/her goals. I thought of this again today when I found this list of other books which surprisingly began their publication lives that way. Take a look.

Getting Started, courtesy of Lorrie Moore

By now I'm pretty sure everyone knows that Lorrie Moore has a new novel out this week, A Gate at the Stairs. I haven't read it, but I expect to. That's not really what today's post is about, though. This morning, I was having trouble getting started on a new piece (not news, really!), and so I was idly clicking around and reading about new books, which led me to remember the following piece which I wrote at the request of Susan Bono, editor of tiny-lights: a journal of personal narrative on the topic of how writers can get started. It originally appeared in her in the December 2008 issue.

How Do You Get Started?
by Lisa Romeo

Assignment: 500 words. Deadline: Tomorrow. Topic: How Writers Get Started

You begin. You stop. Start. Stop. You remember Lorrie Moore*.

First, you do something, anything, else. Crochet. Sing. Sing while crocheting. Start something else - a different story, a post. You tweet. You fail, miserably.

Start a draft. Inner critic laughs, tears it (figuratively, metaphorically?) into a million pieces, shouts Lies! Critic is thinking of unwritten review due yesterday, stalled book proposal, 128 unanswered emails, the unfinished teaching prep.

Think about beginnings. You start, in your head. Dismiss lines, words, syllables.

Tell spouse you are writing about how writers get started; spouse laughs.

Next day, you start.

Tell your mother you are too busy writing to talk on the phone.

You start. You write of the importance of keeping small notebooks everywhere - car, bathroom, gym bag - for thoughts, images, ideas. Of having a writing notebook, a three-subject 120-sheeter, where everything, anything happens. Of the time you once misplaced it, and how no one could start homework or eBay invoices or dinner until it surfaced.

You are warming up. You write about rituals, like fingering a bookmark with the George Elliot quote about never being too late to start over. He-he.

You think about centering your computer in the window, the thoughtful writer framed in glass.
Writing is lonely, you need illusion.

You do have advice: Don't answer the phone unless it's the school nurse. Only answer emails from editors. Don't answer the door to your oldest friend even if she is carrying a bakery bag.

Later, spouse asks how essay/story/poem/article is going. Glare. Explain that "supporting" your writing precludes asking how it's going.

Start again. Shut the door, turn on music, though you prefer silence.

You send emails one flight down to spouse, indicating that essay/story/poem/article is not going well and so you cannot stop; or it is going so well that simply you cannot stop. You are unavailable for dinner prep, or dinner.

You start, re-start, continue to start. Remind yourself this is the creative process. Always. Starting. Again.

Now, something is on the page. You are happy. You reread, and see that all you have written is a failure.

Start again. Replace coffee with white wine, reserved for when you have started badly, or maybe have started too timidly.

There are other methods.You read writers who matter. You read junk. You stop reading because another writing voice is becoming too loud in your head. Anyway, while reading is important, vital, you must eventually stop. And, start.

You wonder what you ought to write about. Not, what was the assignment? But, what do you care most to write? You limit these thoughts to five minutes or, risk cerebral anemia.

Do something, anything else -- day job, night job, weekend job. Jot down what you observe and overhear. You are not procrastinating, not in denial. You are paying rent, paying dues, paying attention.

Push loved ones away, pull them closer; you can't write with them here, or with them gone.

Eventually, you have a beginning or, beginnings. You read them. They are terrible. You reread them. They are fine, really fine.

You start again. On revisions. Rewrites. Middles and endings. In endings you find, always, beginnings.

You cook, walk the dog, cat, guinea pig. You meet friends for coffee and one asks how writers get started, that blank screen, that blank page. Isn't it hard, they want to know. Oh no, you say. Oh, yes.

You reach for the small notebook you carry in your purse. You write something down.
~~~*
c- copyright 2008, Lisa Romeo

Readers, if you have not read Lorrie Moore's, "How to Become a Writer Or, Have You Earned This Cliché?" from Self Help, or if you simply haven't read it recently, please treat yourself. You can find it here. Also, Narrative Magazine has a new interview with Moore on their site today (free registration required).

Gold in Them Notebooks, Part 9

"Gold in Them Notebooks" is a continuing, though sporadic, series of posts, featuring what I find while randomly looking through the notebooks I filled during my MFA program. The rest of the series can be found here.

As part of a seminar titled, "Stay Happily Writing," focused on keeping future MFA grads actively writing, we were urged to:

- List five writing-related goals each for the next month, the next year, and the next five years.
- Speaking as your own inner critic, write out why you won't or can't accomplish these.
- Now, addressing that inner critic, write why and how you will work toward making these goals happen.
- Give yourself three gifts as a writer: Read some good literature every day. Write something every day. Be teachable.
- Write the author flap copy for your first book. For your second book.
- Always be open to new suggestions and ideas -- about your writing, your goals, opportunities, volunteer projects. Try it. You never know.

- Leslea Newman, editor, writing teacher, and author of 50+ books, including children's books, young adult novels, poetry, writing craft, adult novels, essay and short story collections.

Labor Day for Writers

I’m thinking about Labor Day and what it means to writers, especially those whose writing income is not a reliable indicator of the labor they expend. Does Labor Day have a relevance for them?

Writers think of their efforts as a labor of love, and indeed we are often asked to contribute to various creative projects for no (or very little) pay because they have been conceived and executed as labors of love. (I sometimes think this phrase should be amended to labors we love.)

Authors, particularly first-time authors, think of the process of publication as giving birth and we all know what precedes a birth: labor.

We say we are laboring away at a manuscript, especially one that seems not to be giving much back in return.

So, writers, on Labor Day, think about it: value the effort, the craft work, the mental energy, the work ethos, the physical time spent at the task of writing. Maybe you are even today working on a poem, article, query, chapter, essay, blog post, short story, or other piece of writing. If so, take a minute to celebrate and recognize the labor it entails.

And while we are at it -- those of us who can devote more time than might ordinarily be available to our writing, or who were able to get the education necessary to launch writing careers directly because of someone else’s labor -- maybe today is a good time to say thanks.

P.S. And for those crazy, wonderful, exhausted writers who are participating in the Three Day Novel challenge this weekend -- get out of here. You have a book to finish!

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Long Weekend Edition

Hope you find something of interest here for your long weekend.

•Short story writer extraordinaire Alice Munro has withdrawn her latest collection from the running for Canada’s largest (and richest) literary prize, “clearing the way for younger writers,” and some wonder if that’s really such a good thing.

• Say it isn’t so. After 26 years, Reading Rainbow ends its PBS run.

• I just discovered that one of my favorite writers/editors/agents, Betsy Lerner, keeps a blog on her site. She’s the author of The Forest for the Trees, not exactly a new book for writers, but a must-read.

• Etude is an online journal with a special emphasis on the craft of literary nonfiction.

• Want to play with type and fonts and the like on your site or blog?

• Five female authors whose books will debut in 2010 are blogging about their experiences in the run-up to publication, over at the Debutante Ball.

• Protagonists in young adult fiction who happen to be plus-size: Does this even have to be an issue?

• Check out the Editorrent blog for interesting examples, advice, tips, musings, do & don’t, and rants from two acquisition editors.

• Beginning tomorrow through January 3, the Myrtle Beach Art Museum presents Faces and Stories: A Portrait of Southern Writers.

• If you are a fan of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, and eagerly awaiting its theatrical release, with a screenplay by (McSweeney’s editor & memoirist) Dave Eggers, you may like New York Magazine’s interview with Eggers, here.

• Why should writers care about Twitter? A lot of reasons.

• And finally, having trouble finding the words to explain to some recalcitrant publisher or clueless prospective client why writers should get paid? Well, you may not be able to use these exact words, but I guarantee you will enjoy listening to Harlan Ellison explain it all.

Have a great weekend.

My Father, the Writing/Career Coach

My father liked to exaggerate, in a harmless way, in a way which would make others feel good and enjoy the conversation, in a way which seemed to telegraph the amplification and yet at the same time, make it inconceivable for anyone to call him on it.

When I was in my 20s, with my first real (non-freelance) job, I occasionally overhead him say, "My daughter is a top level public relations executive in New York City."

I wasn't.

Oh, I worked at a Manhattan public relations agency all right, and it wasn't exactly entry-level, though it wasn't anywhere near the top. Owing to a first-hand command of a specialized expertise (horses and the show jumping world) and a unique Rolodex of contacts (the equestrian media and elite rider-athletes), I filled a certain niche important to the most important client at that particular agency at that particular time: It was 1984 and the client, Purina, wanted major mileage from their sponsorship of the United States Equestrian Team (which would win Gold at the Los Angeles Olympics that summer).

As an ardent rider myself, and after spending several years post journalism school working as a freelance writer for equestrian magazines (translation: barely scraping by) -- yes, it was a dream job. But only to me. In the overall scheme of the New York public relations business, I was but a very small cog in a quite minor wheel.

But. My father didn't know all that, or at least, he never seemed to understand when I explained that there wasn't anything "top level" about what I was doing. I'd get angry sometimes when he wouldn't acknowledge my true status, and wondered if he wasn't proud of my real achievements.

Of course, I understood it all much better when I had children of my own.

Now that my father has been gone for a few years, something funny happens to me once in a while. On a day when I accomplish something professionally, and even more so on a day when it seems I'll never accomplish another thing, from somewhere deep in my brain (my heart?) I'll hear my father's voice.

"My daughter is a..."
"My daughter writes for…."
"My daughter is editing..."
"My daughter just published…."
"My daughter teaches…"

...and I fill in the blanks any old way I want.

I keep it to myself. I don't argue with the voice. I resist the urge to self-censor. We all need a way to keep going. Some days, that's mine.