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 them Peter Orner, Edith Pearlman, Joshua Henkin, Ayelet Tsabari (whose forthcoming novel, Songs for the Brokenhearted, is a gorgeous book that opened my eyes to the history of Yemeni Jews in Israel), Allegra Goodman, Nicole Krauss, and, reaching further back, Cynthia Ozick and Chaim Potok. What company!! Would that we could all gather around a table at the same time. The event, from 7-9pm at the University of Hartford and on Zoom, is open to the public. You can sign up for both the in-person and Zoom options at this link.

The next day, April 16th, is the publication date for the US paperback edition of Kantika. I’m so grateful to everyone who has read and reviewed this novel, as well as to all the people and organizations who’ve invited me to speak, written to me, and shared their own family stories in all their heartbreak, persistence and joy. To have Kantika continue its journey through the world in this new paperback form is a gift. I’ll be doing fewer events this time around (teaching! writing?) , but I still have quite a few scheduled and will be speaking in Newton, Boston, Los Angeles, and Rhode Island, as well as on Zoom, in the coming months (see my events page for details).