On April 15, I’m honored to be going to the University of Hartford to receive this year’s Edward Lewis Wallant Award for Kantika. My younger daughter, Sylvie, a college junior at Wesleyan University in nearby Middletown, CT, will be my date! Previous winners of the Wallant Award include many writers whose work I love, among … Read more
I had the huge pleasure of doing an event at the Jewish Museum in New York City last week, following two days of festivities and a panel for the Jewish National Book Awards (Kantika received the award for Sephardic Culture). Titled “Wandering Jews: Two Diasporic Journeys Out of the Ottoman Empire,” the 4/28/24 event was … Read more
The paperback of Kantika comes out in April 2024, with early copies making their way out into the world already! I’m excited for a number of events, both virtual and in-person, where I’ll have the chance to continue to share this story, so close to my heart, with readers, and have conversations with an amazing … Read more
When, a few days ago, I received the wonderful news that Kantika had won a National Jewish Book Award—the Mimi S. Frank Award in Memory of Becky Levy—I was stopped short by the fact that Becky Levy shares a name with my grandmother, Rebecca née Cohen Baruch Levy—the inspiration for and central subject of my … Read more
I was so excited to learn that Kantika had been selected as this year’s book for San Francisco’s Jewish Community Library’s “One Bay One Book 2023 program,” and even more excited when I saw the line-up of virtual lectures the program has organized around the themes of the book. Running from November through late Spring … Read more
I was so happy to get to talk about Kantika with author and podcaster G.P. Gottleib. She’s a wonderfully appreciative and perceptive reader, and she gave me the chance toward the end of the podcast to focus on the character of Luna, who was inspired by my wonderful aunt, Luna Leibowitz. Luna was born in … Read more
I was delighted to get to have a substantive conversation about Kantika, my writing practice, weathering rejection, favorite words and more with the wonderful interviewer and reader Mitzi Rapkin, whose podcast, “First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing,” I’ve long admired. You can get a taste of our conversation at this link at Literary Hub and … Read more
I had a wonderful conversation with Michael Tusa, who has a radio show on WRBH Reading Radio in New Orleans. I loved hearing about the station, whose mission is (to quote from the website) “to turn the printed word into the spoken word so that the blind and print impaired can receive the same access … Read more
Debby Waldman is my beloved friend from long ago days when we were both grad students studying writing and literature at Cornell. Though we live far from each other and only manage to see each other every few years, we always start up right where we left off, our visits filled with talk talk talk—about … Read more
I had the good fortune to be interviewed by Brittany White on the Ottoman History Podcast. Earlier episodes featuring the work of Ottoman scholars, among them Devin Naar, Sarah Abrevaya Stein and my Boston College colleague Dana Sajdi (who introduced me to the podcast), were wonderful resources to me as I researched and wrote Kantika, … Read more
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