Big news: I have been invited to speak about the book at the 92nd Street Y in New York. April 8th, 2008: mark it on your calendar. This Y is the epicentre of literary cultural activity in Manhattan and the absolutely perfect place to present the book, so I am very pleased about this engagement. Plus, any excuse to go to New York is fine with me - museums, theatre, Bloomingdales, the Stuart Weitzman shoestore on Madison Avenue (mecca for the big-footed woman), and the Sunday morning Columbus Avenue Flea Market - here I come! Oh yes, and the 92nd Street Y. My Cousin Ted's where I stay is only sixteen blocks away so I can walk to work.
We are midway through the teaching term and as always, I am in love with all my students, now at both U of T and Ryerson - their courage, humour, depth. How lucky I am to have a job that brings me joy; I hope I manage to impart some back to the classes. U of T has already set up an Autobiography II - an advanced course either for former students who want to go on working with me, or for new students whose style will fit with the old bunch. If you're interested in finding out more, please check the U of T Continuing Studies website: www.learn@utoronto.ca.
It is now officially fall, at last - and though I loved the glorious sunshine of the past month, it was just too wierd. As I rode my bike in a t-shirt at the end of October, I kept thinking about the overheated polar bears. Now it's normal out there - grey and bone-chilling. As it should be. This is Canada, after all.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
my autumn letter to the World
Next talk date: Vancouver Jewish Book Fair, Sunday November 25.
I've just come back from Amherst, giving a talk at the National Yiddish Book Center. The site is even lovelier than I had expected, luminous, designed to show visitors that it's a working place where books are used, not a museum. It was a joy to make my own working contribution. The Center staff treated me royally; I was shuttled about and put up in the Amherst Inn, a Victorian mansion. At breakfast that morning, I met two Californians, Nadine and Sterling, in town to visit their children. When they heard about my talk they bemoaned the fact that they'd have to miss it because of prior plans, but when I began, there they were, beaming like old friends in the second row.
Of course I visited Emily Dickinson's house. She was a recluse for 25 years, gazing out of her second floor bedroom window and writing nearly 1800 poems, only a handful of which were published during her lifetime, and those anonymously. "This is my letter to the World," she wrote in one, speaking for every writer. My whole visit was made even more extraordinary by the weather - more like August than October, but the famous New England fall colours very much on display.
The book has been favourably reviewed in the "Canadian Jewish News," and I continue to receive heartening notes from readers. I love teaching at the U of T, where my classroom is at the centre of that gorgeous campus, in University College overlooking the Cloisters. We missed Thanksgiving Day this year - I was away - but we'll cook our turkey two weeks late. Anna, Sam and I never miss a chance to give thanks, especially if it involves turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes.
I've just come back from Amherst, giving a talk at the National Yiddish Book Center. The site is even lovelier than I had expected, luminous, designed to show visitors that it's a working place where books are used, not a museum. It was a joy to make my own working contribution. The Center staff treated me royally; I was shuttled about and put up in the Amherst Inn, a Victorian mansion. At breakfast that morning, I met two Californians, Nadine and Sterling, in town to visit their children. When they heard about my talk they bemoaned the fact that they'd have to miss it because of prior plans, but when I began, there they were, beaming like old friends in the second row.
Of course I visited Emily Dickinson's house. She was a recluse for 25 years, gazing out of her second floor bedroom window and writing nearly 1800 poems, only a handful of which were published during her lifetime, and those anonymously. "This is my letter to the World," she wrote in one, speaking for every writer. My whole visit was made even more extraordinary by the weather - more like August than October, but the famous New England fall colours very much on display.
The book has been favourably reviewed in the "Canadian Jewish News," and I continue to receive heartening notes from readers. I love teaching at the U of T, where my classroom is at the centre of that gorgeous campus, in University College overlooking the Cloisters. We missed Thanksgiving Day this year - I was away - but we'll cook our turkey two weeks late. Anna, Sam and I never miss a chance to give thanks, especially if it involves turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes.
Monday, August 27, 2007
What I did on my summer holidays
My talk in Halifax is postponed. Not one of us planning the event noticed that we had scheduled it for the first night of Rosh Hashanah. My calendar noted the following day as the day, and I forgot that Jewish holidays always start the night before. We are going to reschedule and this time will check carefully. Stay tuned.
I've had an extreme restful August - I conveniently got pneumonia! It was terrific; I couldn't go to the Y or do any work, just lay around reading - it was just like being at a cottage without tedious commute or lake. I enjoyed reading novels, which I don't usually have time for with everything else I have to read, and watched a DVD or two. (Including "God Grew Tired of Us" - a very beautiful documentary, highly recommended.) Now I am regaining my lungs and will start to venture out into the world - my time at my own particular holiday camp drawing to a close, with the summer.
It's a pleasure to announce that as well as my on-going classes at Ryerson, I will start teaching at U of T in the fall. I had a highly enjoyable meeting with Lee Gowan, the writer who runs the Continuing Studies writing programs at U of T. Their calendar already includes Autobiography, Memoir, Finding your Voice and Creative Non-fiction, my areas of expertise, so Lee encouraged me to develop a new course. A former student of both mine and Lee's came up with the idea of a course in Telling the Family Story, aimed specifically at writers who want to do what I did in the book: track fascinating family figures and commit family stories to paper. Lee has put the course in the Spring 2008 Calendar, but in the meantime Autobiography needed a teacher this term, so I start September 24th.
For those of you in Toronto, don't forget the Cabbagetown Festival, coming up Sept. 8 and 9, a glorious community event. For all of you, I wish you many end-of-summer peaches.
I've had an extreme restful August - I conveniently got pneumonia! It was terrific; I couldn't go to the Y or do any work, just lay around reading - it was just like being at a cottage without tedious commute or lake. I enjoyed reading novels, which I don't usually have time for with everything else I have to read, and watched a DVD or two. (Including "God Grew Tired of Us" - a very beautiful documentary, highly recommended.) Now I am regaining my lungs and will start to venture out into the world - my time at my own particular holiday camp drawing to a close, with the summer.
It's a pleasure to announce that as well as my on-going classes at Ryerson, I will start teaching at U of T in the fall. I had a highly enjoyable meeting with Lee Gowan, the writer who runs the Continuing Studies writing programs at U of T. Their calendar already includes Autobiography, Memoir, Finding your Voice and Creative Non-fiction, my areas of expertise, so Lee encouraged me to develop a new course. A former student of both mine and Lee's came up with the idea of a course in Telling the Family Story, aimed specifically at writers who want to do what I did in the book: track fascinating family figures and commit family stories to paper. Lee has put the course in the Spring 2008 Calendar, but in the meantime Autobiography needed a teacher this term, so I start September 24th.
For those of you in Toronto, don't forget the Cabbagetown Festival, coming up Sept. 8 and 9, a glorious community event. For all of you, I wish you many end-of-summer peaches.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
in the fall and on the shelf
Two confirmed book-related events in the fall:
- on Wednesday September 12 I will be speaking in Halifax, Nova Scotia, at the Halifax Grammar School, the school co-founded by my father. This will be a true homecoming in many ways, organised by two of my oldest friends, Donna and Ian Thompson, helped by Frog Hollow Books and HGS's Gay Silverman. I am now contacting old Halifax friends to let them know, most importantly the extraordinary Muriel Duckworth, who is 97. Muriel, however, is at her summer home in Quebec and won't return to Halifax till the end of September. We had a long talk, and I, forty years younger, felt rejuvenated by her openness and joie de vivre. Her husband Jack ran the YMCA in Halifax and dragooned the Kaplan family into joining a volleyball club in 1960 or so; I did not enjoy having to play volleyball with my family but I have stayed a member of the Y in every Canadian city I've lived in ever since, and the Y here is one of the cornerstones of my life. I told her I owe it all to Jack and his volleyballs. She had a good laugh. How I'd love to see her, but I will get to see lots of other old friends and the Atlantic Ocean, which feels like a great old friend too, much missed.
- on October 7, I will be speaking at the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusets. I had to look at a map with a magnifying glass to see where the town is, though I know so much about the Center itself, started by the aimiable and unstoppable Aaron Lansky. Aaron began rescuing Yiddish books one by one from dumpsters, which led eventually to the building of the vast Center and the cataloguing of millions of Yiddish books. I will be very proud to speak at a place that honours writers and their books in such a vital way.
I forgot to mention one moment from my July trip to New York. My second cousin Lola and I went to a free klezmer concert outside at Lincoln Centre, and on the way stopped at the Barnes and Noble nearby. We enquired about the book and were told it was in the Judaica section, but I really couldn't believe that it would actually be there. But it was - my book, at the Barnes and Noble near Lincoln Centre. Lola even offered to buy it, but she already has a copy, and anyway, then it wouldn't be there any more - there was only one. So I gave it a little squeeze and put it back on the shelf.
- on Wednesday September 12 I will be speaking in Halifax, Nova Scotia, at the Halifax Grammar School, the school co-founded by my father. This will be a true homecoming in many ways, organised by two of my oldest friends, Donna and Ian Thompson, helped by Frog Hollow Books and HGS's Gay Silverman. I am now contacting old Halifax friends to let them know, most importantly the extraordinary Muriel Duckworth, who is 97. Muriel, however, is at her summer home in Quebec and won't return to Halifax till the end of September. We had a long talk, and I, forty years younger, felt rejuvenated by her openness and joie de vivre. Her husband Jack ran the YMCA in Halifax and dragooned the Kaplan family into joining a volleyball club in 1960 or so; I did not enjoy having to play volleyball with my family but I have stayed a member of the Y in every Canadian city I've lived in ever since, and the Y here is one of the cornerstones of my life. I told her I owe it all to Jack and his volleyballs. She had a good laugh. How I'd love to see her, but I will get to see lots of other old friends and the Atlantic Ocean, which feels like a great old friend too, much missed.
- on October 7, I will be speaking at the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusets. I had to look at a map with a magnifying glass to see where the town is, though I know so much about the Center itself, started by the aimiable and unstoppable Aaron Lansky. Aaron began rescuing Yiddish books one by one from dumpsters, which led eventually to the building of the vast Center and the cataloguing of millions of Yiddish books. I will be very proud to speak at a place that honours writers and their books in such a vital way.
I forgot to mention one moment from my July trip to New York. My second cousin Lola and I went to a free klezmer concert outside at Lincoln Centre, and on the way stopped at the Barnes and Noble nearby. We enquired about the book and were told it was in the Judaica section, but I really couldn't believe that it would actually be there. But it was - my book, at the Barnes and Noble near Lincoln Centre. Lola even offered to buy it, but she already has a copy, and anyway, then it wouldn't be there any more - there was only one. So I gave it a little squeeze and put it back on the shelf.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Rich with nuanced detail
A beautiful summer is drifting by. August is a month with no teaching income but also no pressure - an ideal time to embark on a new project. But first I had a superb couple of days on the deck with the latest "New Yorker", the new Harry Potter, and a few glasses of rose. A true summer vacation. And now to work, though I'm still figuring out what's next.
The third child is doing fine. I went to New York in July to visit family but also to talk up the book. While I was visiting my scholarly friends at the YIVO, the centre for Yiddish research, a woman I'd never met, who is now in charge of YIVO theater research, sought me out and gave the book an enthusiastic endorsement. I also had a great meeting with the helpful and lively Canadian cultural attachee Anna Velasco about a possible launch or reading in NYC. And among copies of the book sent out recently to possibly interested parties was one to Steven Spielberg, who used to sponsor a Yiddish theater website. I have always thought the story of the Jewish Shakespeare would make a great movie, starring, say, Kevin Kline as Gordin. No?
Some very nice, intelligent person just posted a review at Amazon.com saying that the book is "rich with nuanced detail." Love it. Perhaps I'll ask for that to be put on my tombstone. "Beth Kaplan, 1950-2050. Rich with nuanced detail."
Happy reading to you all.
The third child is doing fine. I went to New York in July to visit family but also to talk up the book. While I was visiting my scholarly friends at the YIVO, the centre for Yiddish research, a woman I'd never met, who is now in charge of YIVO theater research, sought me out and gave the book an enthusiastic endorsement. I also had a great meeting with the helpful and lively Canadian cultural attachee Anna Velasco about a possible launch or reading in NYC. And among copies of the book sent out recently to possibly interested parties was one to Steven Spielberg, who used to sponsor a Yiddish theater website. I have always thought the story of the Jewish Shakespeare would make a great movie, starring, say, Kevin Kline as Gordin. No?
Some very nice, intelligent person just posted a review at Amazon.com saying that the book is "rich with nuanced detail." Love it. Perhaps I'll ask for that to be put on my tombstone. "Beth Kaplan, 1950-2050. Rich with nuanced detail."
Happy reading to you all.
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