I recently made an interesting connection that confirmed my strong belief in the importance of sharing family stories. At one of my presentations about converting family stories into fiction, a woman asked me about the history of my family name. Someone she knew had the same...
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If you’ve found your way to the Reader’s Guide questions below, you may have already read On the Sickle’s Edge, or perhaps you’re considering reading it or making it a book club choice. Either way, I’m deeply grateful for your interest in this story based...
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When we’re really in touch with ourselves, we recognize the need for restoration as clearly as if it were a hunger for food or drink...
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It was difficult to identify and put into words what I thought my listeners might get out of my presentation. But by going through that process, I developed a different relationship with them....
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When I find myself unable to get out of my own head to roll down the embankment into my story, I will recall how lost I felt standing before my blank canvas as if it were the first time, and I will remember what I...
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As a storyteller, I spend a lot of time wondering what’s at the base of our very human struggles. We search for balance in our lives. Purpose. Meaning. We struggle to find, and to hold onto, the elusive awareness that we are okay, at a...
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I’m generally in good health. I eat and live carefully. But the last few weeks have been unusual. It might have been the frightening rightward turn the country is making, or it may have been a short course of antibiotics I was on. Whatever the...
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This past Saturday night I heard a lecture by French philosopher Bernard Henri Lévy about his new book The Genius of Judaism. I attended because he’s the most influential French intellectual alive today, and I wanted to hear his voice. I also went because I...
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A hundred years of history. A lifetime of listening to family stories. Ten years of research. Three years in the writing. On the Sickle’s Edge, my Soviet-era novel, is finally about to be born. Not a moment too soon. The publication date – January 16,...
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The holidays approach, and friends and family begin to gather. In the rush to survive, achieve, and accomplish, we often neglect the weight and stability of community, but at this time of year, it begins to assert itself. We begin to feel the pull of...
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