Publishing news

Two bits of news in the world of me being a published author:

1. It's Still Shabbat is about to be reprinted in the next issue of Horizons published by Targum Press. This will be my first ever appearance in hard copy. I'm not 100% which issue will have it, but if you want to know, tell me, and I'll pass it on once I receive my sample copy.

2. Bigger news. My third article has just appeared on Aish with the title A Year Of Memory.

I have to say, that of the three articles published on Aish, this one feels the weirdest to me, or at least right now. (Maybe it always feels weird.) This article feels different to me for a number of reasons. I'll try not to editorialize too much and let you make your own judgment, but with It's Still Shabbat and Now She Could Fill My Heart I had more specific lessons I wanted to teach about attitude towards people or holiness. In this piece, it's more of an exploration of a form in writing. I hope only that the way I approached the holidays in this piece can be a model for other people to approach the same holidays with their own interpretation based on their own life events, both large and small.

But on another note, even though this article is about memory, it feels weird to still be publishing about cancer three years after the fact. I'd like to go somewhere with my other work too although I find it much harder to sell and to find the time to work on. I've been working for a while on a poem about just that. Here is the the current draft:

Cancer Sells

Long ago my body
rid itself of cancer cells.
But the problem is
cancer sells.

20 years a writer,
3 years a survivor
and it’s the latter
that gets published.

Back in college
before any crises
a muse
perched herself on my desk
garbed in irony and wit.

After the cancer
she wrapped herself
in faith and healing.

But now,
with good health
and an 8-4 schedule,
I can no longer justify
dressing her in self-pity
or obsession.

The sun is shining
and I am glad.
But every poet
has seen and said
that before.