Tag Archives: writing

A Writer’s Life

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Wow work at home! A writer’s life, an editor’s life, oh hey. Sit around at home, take your good time, concentrate in silence, work! Oh  joy.

Take a work break skiing in the yard

xcskitracksinyard smllfile blusunnytrees a 10-minute drive to a mountain lake

yesweb72greenlakemntnkick back . . .

Problem is . .  .

  • construction noise next door
  • phone solicitors
  • running out of office supplies
  • billing clients
  • looking for clients
  • too many clients at once
  • taxes
  • getting everything done
  • feral dogs

But there are joys, especially when you finish, as I did yesterday, a final edit of another book!

timeandotherdetails

Author Readings in Berkeley, California, June 13 and 14

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This longtime Bay Area activist will be in Berkeley, California, to read and sign copies of my recent novel, The Rescuer’s Path, on June 13 and June 14. Be great to see you at either reading; both include Q&A–discussion and socializing time.

*June 13, 2013, 7-9 pm, I’m reading in the Aquarian Minyan Author Series, St. John’s Presbyterian Church (Fireside Room) (this is a benefit for the Minyan, small donation suggested but not required. Light refreshments included).

* June 14, 2013, 12:15-1:15pm, Berkeley City College (in the Atrium), Center St. between Milvia and Shattuck Ave. (free).

The Rescuer’s Path is the tale of a Holocaust survivor’s daughter who, in Nixon-era Washington DC, aids an Arab-American antiwar leader suspected by the FBI in a lethal truck-bombing. It is the story of their budding trust and friendship, and of  their tragic love. And it recounts the search of their birth daughter, thirty years later in the shadows of 9/11, for the truth of her origins.

Ursula K. Le Guin calls this novel “exciting, physically vivid, and romantic.” Cheryl Strayed, acclaimed author of Wild, says “The Rescuer’s Path held me from the first page to the last.” Flannery O’Connor Award winner Carole L. Glickfeld says “I could not stop reading this novel–I love it.” Small Press Review says “The writing is lyrical and poetic, the characters vivid, and the story captivating.” Berkeley activist/songwriter Carol Denney says “This is the book you can’t put down, the people you will remember, the vibrant story we all share.”

And more: “These characters will break your heart and put it back together again,” notes Portland author Heather Sharfeddin. FirstMotherForum calls The Rescuer’s Path “a compelling tale with universal themes of separation and reconciliation.” It is a novel, notes Jewish Transcript (JT) News, “that asks us, How do we make peace, in ourselves and in the world?”

Come hear the reading, ask questions, and perhaps take home a signed copy of The Rescuer’s Path (2012, PVP, trade paperback $15.95).

Questions about the readings? Send as a comment here or visit me on facebook at Paula Friedman (same photo as author photo for this blog).

Deering the Unknown, Blogging the Books

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After reading at the warm and wondrous Wy’East Book Shoppe in Welches (Oregon) on Mount Hood last weekend, I started driving home in the dusk and hit a deer. I am fine, the car will be fine, and the deer–? Dunno; it’s mountain lion territory there. Meanwhile, today the elegant Indies Unlimited brought out its sneak peek of The Rescuer’s Path, my recent novel that recounts both the 1971 love affair between a Holocaust survivor’s daughter and a fugitive Arab-American antiwar activist suspected of the bombing of an army truck, and the 2001 search of their birth daughter for the truth of her origins–  http://wp.me/p1WnN1-4Yc

Reading and Booksigning in Welches, on Mount Hood, June 15

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Come join us for my reading from The Rescuer’s Path in Welches, OR, June 15, 2012, 7:30 pm, Wy’East Book Shoppe and Art Gallery, in the woodsy mall at Highway 26 one block west of the Welches traffic light.

This is a wonderful, friendly, welcoming, and well-stocked bookstore that also often features superb pieces by local arts and crafts persons.

The Rescuer’s Path is the tale of a Holocaust survivor’s daughter who, in Nixon-era Washington DC, finds, aids, and comes to love a half-Arab antiwar leader suspected by the FBI in a lethal truck-bombing. It is the story of their tragic love and of the search by their birth daughter, amid the shadows of 9/11, for the truth of her origins.

Ursula K. Le Guin calls this novel “exciting, physically vivid, and romantic.” Acclaimed novelist Cheryl Strayed says “The Rescuer’s Path held me from the first page to the last.” Flannery O’Connor Award–winner Carole L. Glickfeld says “I could not stop reading this novel–I love it.” Small Press Review says “The writing is lyrical and poetic, the characters vivid, and the story captivating.” FirstMotherForum calls The Rescuer’s Path “a compelling story with universal themes of love and loss, separation and reconciliation.”

“These characters will break your heart and put it back together again,” notes Portland author Heather Sharfeddin. Berkeley activist/songwriter Carol Denney says “This is the book you can’t put down, the people you will remember, the vibrant story we all share.”  This novel demands we ask, notes the Jewish Transcript (JT) News, “How do we make peace, in ourselves and in the world?”

Come hear the reading, ask questions of the author, and perhaps purchase a signed copy of The Rescuer’s Path (2012, Plain View, $15.95).

Questions about this event? For more information: http://www.wyeastonline.com/event/meet-author-book-signing-paula-freidman-author-rescuers-path

Authors among Us–Reading in White Salmon, WA, May 12

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Authors among Us

A reading and booksigning by authors Paula Friedman, Miralee Ferrell, and Sheila Simonson
May 12, 2012, 2 pm, White Salmon Valley Community Library, 77 NE Wauna Avenue, White Salmon, WA

Come listen and enjoy! I’ll be reading from my new novel The Rescuer’s Path, about the tragic love between a young Jewish woman and an Arab-American peace activist pursued by the FBI. Sheila and Miralee will read from their books, too. Plenty of time for Q&A and discussion afterward, and signed book copies will be available–all in the library’s beautiful Sprint/Baker Gallery. Come spend a great afternoon in the scenic Columbia River Gorge region east of Portland, OR.

‘unwed mothers’ and other outlaws: April 28 reading/discussion at Portland’s In Other Words feminist community center

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I’m excited to be reading from my novel The Rescuer’s Path and leading a very related discussion, “‘Unwed mothers’ and other outlaws: Nonconforming mothers, single pregnancy, social activism–then and now,” at the newly revamped In Other Words Feminist Community Center, 14 NE Killingsworth, Portland, Oregon, on April 28, 5 to 6:30 p.m.

Never solely a bookstore, and now more than ever a center for community activities, In Other Words is a most inviting place for this reading and discussion of issues ranging from the social pressures on “unwed mothers” pre-Roe to the hardships confronted by impoverished single-parent families today, from the risks confronting antiwar and civil rights activists of “the Sixties” to the dangers, present and to come, for Occupiers and others who confront today’s militarized police, privatized prisons, and dismantling of basic Constitutional protections.

Ursula Le Guin calls The Rescuer’s Path “exciting, physically vivid, and romantic,” and Small Press Review says “the writing is lyrical and poetic, the characters vividly drawn, and the story captivating.” “I could not top reading this novel,” notes Flannery O’Connor Award winner Carole Glickfeld, and acclaimed Portland author Cheryl Strayed says The Rescuer’s Path “held me from the first page to the last.”

In The Rescuer’s Path, a Holocaust survivor’s young daughter finds and aids a wounded fugitive, the half-Arab antiwar leader suspected of a lethal truck bombing. The two become friends, then lovers, and eventually flee the FBI to seeming refuge in the Colorado Rockies. But, after a brief idyll, pursuit closes in and leads to tragedy. In the aftermath, the couple’s baby daughter is yielded at birth for adoption; thirty years later, in the shadows of 9/11, this grown daughter seeks the truth about her heritage.

With flashbacks to Holocaust rescue, scenes from a 1980s-1990s Berkeley marriage, refugee family tales, and basic issues of mortality and of righteous living, The Rescuer’s Path provides lively meat for reading and discussion.

Spring Oregon Readings–The Rescuer’s Path

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You are invited!

Three Oregon readings now scheduled for The Rescuer’s Path, my new novel of the antiwar movement, the struggle for justice, an adoption reunion, and the love between a Holocaust survivor’s sheltered daughter and an anguished half-Arab peace activist suspected by the FBI of a lethal truck bombing:

The Rescuer’s Path: photo of cover

Hood River Library, Hood River, Oregon, April 1, 2012, 2 p.m. Cosponsored by the library and Waucoma Books, Hood River, Oregon.

In Other Words–Women’s Bookstore and Community Center, Portland, Oregon, April 28, 2012, 5-6:30 p.m. Reading, with discussion “Unwed Mothers and Other Outlaws–1960s and the Present Day”

White Salmon Valley Library, White Salmon, Washington, May 12, 2-4 p.m. Three Regional Authors Read.

Small Press Review praises The Rescuer’s Path

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I’m happy to tell you that the prestigious and nationally distributed Small Press Review praises my new novel, The Rescuer’s Path, very glowingly–mostly–in the Jan.-Feb. 2012 issue. Here’s the review; enjoy!

Small Press Review—review by Marie C. Sanchez

The Rescuer’s Path

by Paula Friedman (2012; 195 pp; Pa; $15.95; Plain View Press)

From the first page, Friedman illuminates a world near Washington DC of gullies and game trails and Gavin Hareem, a Nixon-era wounded antiwar leader who is accused of the deadly bombing of an army truck. While Malca Bernovski rides a horse off-trail, she encounters the wounded half-Syrian fugitive and, by aiding him, sets off a blossoming romance that sends them both on a desperate struggle for survival and justice. The sheltered Malca, 16-year old daughter of a Holocaust survivor, reveals surprising resources and choices.

If you’ve ever wanted to enter the mind of a pacifist who eventually turns to violence, this is it. Gavin alternates between reality and insanity, clarity and confusion, brilliance and absurdity, striking just the right notes of believability.

Years later, the lovers’ child searches for her parents and the story moves seamlessly from the nation’s capital to the Colorado Rockies, from the Warsaw Ghetto to post-9/11 San Francisco.

Time itself appears among the major characters. Deft strokes unobtrusively fill in the couple’s histories without slowing the story, and elegant leaps propel the story forward years and decades. However, Friedman’s adroit touch fades toward the end where the treatment of time feels more like gaps than well-timed jumps.

The couple’s daughter searching out her birth parents in the last third of the book starts out promising, but at the end, seemed unfinished. The treatment of daughter and time at the end of the book seemed disappointingly lackluster, given such an incandescent beginning.

That said, the writing is lyrical and poetic, the places finely detailed, the characters vividly drawn and the story captivating.

—JanFeb 2012 SPR—

Listing through snow

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We were snowed in for four days, electricity off at all hours through most this time. Icy and beautiful one night, trees–their limbs–tinkled in the wind, falling. Today outside was sunny and still and bright, brilliant sparkles on the white, blue-shadowed, rolling-heaped snow.

A time to make lists, worn out from building wood fires in the tiny stove, digging out the car, shivering in the cold, changing from wet clothes.

The Rescuer’s Path, my new novel, is now (available on amazon, barnesandnoble, plainviewpress.net, etc., and) up on Goodreads. To “drive traffic to one’s book,” should I make Listopia lists? Rather than let people know, This is a novel of a Holocaust survivor’s daughter who aids a half-Arab antiwar leader suspected of the lethal bombing of an army truck, and of the trust and love that blooms between them, of their flight and the long pursuit–? Rather than tell people that Ursula Le Guin calls this novel “exciting, physically vivid, and romantic,” and that Cheryl Strayed, Carole Glickfeld, Heather Sharfeddin, Barbara Mullen, folksinger/writer Carol Denney, blogger Harriet Klausner–all speak highly of this book.

All right, lists. (That last sentence had a list.) I love lists. And movie and science fiction dystopias. And really, really good films–books and films. Here they are, then–

10 Best Films of all time (features)

The Seventh Seal

The Official Story

Children of Paradise

Odd Man Out

La Jetée

(Wajda’s trilogy) A Generation, Kanal, Ashes and Diamonds

Au revoir, les enfants

Duel in the Sun

A Place in the World

oh okay, Casablanca. But there’s Coup de grâce. Citizen Kane. Battle of Algiers. Midnight Cowboy. Four or more of Bergman’s best. And . . .

Next time–10 Best Novels of all time.

Which would you list?

With our own hands

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Since we were kids, we’ve each heard: “Most people can never be real Writers!” Just as we’ve heard that most people cannot be musicians, cannot learn algebraic topology, cannot “really” embrace their full feelings, cannot “actually” cause much political change . . . Well, you know who such cautions benefit, don’t you? What the marxists call “the owner class,” that’s who—meaning the Big Owners, the folks who give their kids a publishing house or enough stock to manage a minor country, for a birthday present—the folks who are much happier if we don’t take our (political) destinies in our own hands.

Let’s not listen to such discouragement. Let’s, in fact, take our writing (and other) destinies, to the extent humanly possible, into our own hands. And minds and hearts. And share this empowerment, and mutual encouragement, and skills tips; let’s thus strengthen one another and our writings.

Obviously, we still have to learn and polish our techniques, our skills, our knowledge. In fact, for any of usl, it is necessary, beyond “talent,” to write, to learn the guidelines of grammars and styles, to read the finest of writings, and to write, and to write, and to write.

Welcome to my blog. Here we can discuss the struggles and possibilities of writing and literature, writers and others in the world. This is a new blogsite, begun as my debut novel, The Rescuer’s Path, approaches publication (2012, Plain View Press, $15.95—available beginning in January 2012 through the press and through Amazon, B&N, other online bookstores, and by order through your local independent bookstore).

The Rescuer’s Path tells what happens in 1971 when a Holocaust survivor’s daughter aids a wounded fugitive, a half-Syrian peace activist wanted in the lethal bombing of a U.S. Army truck, and with him must flee an implacable police and FBI pursuit. Then, years later, in the shadow of 9/11, their grown birthdaughter determines to seek her origins . . .

I want to know about your novels, too—and your writing experiences, tips, and struggles. Soon I hope to post guest blogs here (articles 100 to 400 words), so contact me if you would like to contribute one!