What a Typewriter Bar Mitzvah Gift and Devoted Creative Time Can Do for Your Writing

I had this conversation with author Lia Mack a number of years ago but she has just re-posted it on her new blog. In the interview, Lia stated that my "insight and inspiration for fellow writers is, as always, spot on!" Lia, thank you so much for that, and for re-posting the interview.

One of the questions Lia asks is: "If you could go back in time, what advice would you give yourself if you could speak to the aspiring writer you once were?"

Find my answer and the rest of the interview on Lia's blog!

The Day I Bumped into the Prime Minister of Bulgaria

During the two years we lived in Bulgaria, my wife and I regularly left our home in Sofia to drive into the countryside, exploring picturesque villages and visiting ethnographical museums. We were eager to learn everything we could about Bulgarian history and culture. I was constantly researching new places to visit.

On one extended December weekend, my wife and I traveled to Burgas, on the Black Sea coast. Despite the cold breezes and cloudy skies, we drove all the way south to the Turkish border and then back to Sozopol, an ancient seaside town that serves as a crowded resort in the summer months.

Review of Waking Lions by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen

They clean. They clear tables. They wash dishes; they wash floors. They walk the streets, ride the buses. They are dark-skinned, indistinguishable, and most of them don’t speak our language. They are all around us, but we don’t acknowledge their existence. We see them in our peripheral vision, yet we never see them at all.

Eritrean refugees in Israel, who hardly ever feature in our concerns, take center stage in the novel Waking Lions by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen (Little, Brown and Company, February 2017). They make a very strong impact, one that starts late at night on a dark desert highway. Dr. Eitan Green, recently relocated to Beer Sheva with his family, slams into an Eritrean man and leaves him for dead.