In my last blog post, I promised to talk about how I came to write the Jezebel trilogy. I began to think about Jezebel in 1977. The Oakland Women’s Press Collective, which I’d poured heart and soul into for three years, had crashed and burned, leaving former members not speaking to each other. During the […]
Why Study History?-Part I
“Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” That was originally said by Edmund Burke in the 18th Century, and paraphrased by Santayana and later by Churchill. Unfortunately, most people, including our leaders, are not interested in history. This was brought home to me last month, on the anniversary of 9/11. Charles Blow, […]
Why Buy Books?
Books are more important than ever in times like these—times of “alternative facts” spouted by government propagandists, as well as accusations of “fake news” when a journalist’s report contradicts the canonical story. In this post I want to write about why we might want to keep our own libraries—books printed on paper, on shelves in […]
A Very Convenient “Suicide”
Jeffrey Epstein was born in Brooklyn to working class parents. So was I. And if you believe the official story—that he hanged himself—I’d like to sell you a very nice bridge from our home town. Epstein dropped out of college in 1974 but was hired to teach physics and math at Dalton, an exclusive private […]
A Meteor Shower: Reading at Two Rivers Bookstore
Y’all come! I’m reading from my most recent historical novel, A Meteor Shower, at Two Rivers Bookstore, 8836 N Lombard St, Portland OR. The action starts on Sunday, September 8, from 2-4 pm: love and chariot warfare in the ancient Middle East, kings and queens, peasants and prophets. Below are some comments from reviewers, and […]
A Tale of Two Armbands
…and how they came to be made. This year, the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, I traveled from Portland OR to New York to celebrate. In addition to my Gay Liberation Front t-shirt, I brought two homemade armbands with me, with pink triangles and Jewish stars, in order to make a statement about anti-Semitism. […]
Lies, Myths, and Stonewall
Eyewitnesses often can’t agree on events that happened yesterday, let alone 50 years ago—like the Stonewall Riots. Inevitably, some nations, interest groups, and individuals attempt to shape the narrative to promote their own agendas. They glorify their achievements, gloss over their misdeeds, and disparage or even omit the real achievements of others. When […]
The Trilogy is Complete!
At long last, the third book is in print. You can now buy all three novels—The Throne in the Heart of the Sea, The Stars in Their Courses, and A Meteor Shower—on the Ebisu Publications website at http://ebisupublications.com/books/. Forty-one years ago I was reading the history of my people, and it seemed clear to me […]
50 Years of Fighting for Justice
When I think about life before Stonewall the anger wells up in me. I think about my mother offering to spend the money she’d been saving for my wedding on a psychologist who would fix me. Or offering to pay for a nose job—the theory being that I would look less Jewish and boys would […]
Must Big Thugs Always Rule?
Trump kids shoot exotic & endangered animals “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” –Wm. Shakespeare The fault we have to contend with in trying to establish democracy is that a huge percentage of the population—of any population—wants a gorilla in charge. A Big Daddy […]