Howard Lovy

Category: Publishing

This is my home for author interviews. I produce podcasts and interview indie authors for the Alliance of Independent Authors; and I write about Jewish authors and Jewish-themed books for Publishers Weekly. This area will be updated with new stuff, greatest hits, and some commentary/advice for authors and editors. Enjoy!

  • Podcast: Should Just Anybody Write a Memoir?

    Podcast: Should Just Anybody Write a Memoir?

    I’m about to say something with which just about every other person in the publishing industry will disagree. In fact, most will strongly, passionately, with much snooty sarcasm, disagree with what I’m about to say. Everybody has a memoir in them. Not only that, but everybody should write a memoir. There, I said it.

    Every life is unique, and everybody has a story that only they can tell. As a journalist, what I enjoy most is getting people’s stories in their own words. As a book editor, I can help them tell it in a way that brings out their own voice, that will invite others to relive their unique lives with them.

    It’s not an easy thing to do, to write a memoir. I recently advised an editing client that he’d need to change his story’s focus if he wanted something more than just a family heirloom to give his children. For that, you have to make hard choices on what parts of the story to emphasize, what to leave out, and how you make your specific theme universal. Not all publishers have the patience for it, especially since memoirs are reaching saturation in the market now.

    With the rise of self-publishing, authors don’t need to put up with rejection by acquiring editors who decide whether anybody cares about your story. Just write it. Oh, and hire a good editor to help you tell it. That’s all.

    With that said, I’d like you to meet indie author Leila Summers of South Africa, who self-published a memoir called It Rains in February, about a very personal, painful topic, the suicide of her husband, that she made universal.

    Click the button below to listen to our interview.

    Listen to the AskALLi IndieVoices Podcast

  • Marilène Phipps Tells Her Spiritual Vodou Journey by Way of Catholicism and Mormonism

    Marilène Phipps Tells Her Spiritual Vodou Journey by Way of Catholicism and Mormonism

    Marilène Phipps knew she had a book about a spiritual journey that involved Vodou and other faiths, but it did not become clear until after she began writing. A memoir is not a history of a life. A memoir selects slices of a life, experiences that reveal themselves to be unwittingly connected to each other by a common thread and within a particular theme. Deciding what to keep in and what to leave out helps consolidate meaning. This is the way it was with Phipps.

    The result is Unseen Worlds: Adventures at the Crossroads of Vodou Spirits and Latter-day Saints, which tells an intriguing, dynamic, wide-ranging story of the author’s spiritual life from her Euro-centric, Catholic upbringing in Haiti to a quest that brought her into contact with Vodou priests, Catholic monks—even a pope—as well as Mormon bishops, and young missionaries. Woven in between is the history of Haiti that includes her famous martyred godfather, a kind of Christ figure in her life, who died trying to free the country from dictatorship.

    Phipps has a fascinating story to tell, so I just had to talk to her about her journey. In our interview, we discuss her quest, her writing, and begin with her legendary godfather and cousin.

    Here is what Marilène had to say about Vodou:

    “Vodou is a religion. There is a pantheon of gods, a very rich one, but they do believe in Gran Mèt—Great Master—which is perhaps God. It’s a series of rituals, beliefs, and devotional systems. It came to Haiti through the slaves from different regions of Africa. Each region had its own God. It can be said that the gods made the crossing with their devotees.”

    Read the whole interview with Marilène Phipps

    I’ve been working with Calumet Editions on other projects, too, including more author interviews. I’m also excited about partnering with Calumet Editions on audiobook production. I’ll have more to say about that later when the announcement is ready.

  • Podcast Author Interview: J. Dianne Dotson Finds Right Blend of Science and Science Fiction

    Podcast Author Interview: J. Dianne Dotson Finds Right Blend of Science and Science Fiction

    How do you properly mix science in science fiction? J. Dianne Dotson has found the recipe. In my podcast for the Alliance of Independent Authors, I interview a sci-fi writer who also does actual science.

    I love science fiction, but the worst thing is to wade through pages and pages of technical detail about some technology invented by the author. Just tell me, simply, that it works and I’ll suspend my disbelief and believe you … like warp speed in Star Trek.

    Interviews like this one with Dianne make my gig with ALLi especially enjoyable. Interviewing authors who inspire me is my favorite part of what I do. Inspirational Indie Authors is the SEO-friendly (I’ve been told) version of my old IndieVoices podcast. Every week, I focus on a new author, learn their backstories, and let them talk about their work. I don’t discuss marketing plans, or any other business-related stuff. Believe me, nobody wants business advice from me. My interviews focus purely on story and writing.

    Here’s some of what Dianne had to say:

    On the Proper Mix of Science When Writing Science Fiction

    “I think that the level of science in science fiction is going to vary depending on what you’re trying to tell, what kind of story, what setting. And so for my series, for example, it’s a combination of science fiction with a touch of fantasy. But even with that, you have to have a set of rules to address both.”

    On Why She Studied Ecology

    “I wanted to know how everything fit together and in ecology you really do learn about how systems all fit together and how everything affects everything else in the environment. And, you know, from the microscopic to macroscopic level, that just fascinated me and I was just like, ‘This is my jam.’”

    Listen to the whole interview on my podcast for the Alliance of Independent Authors.

  • Older Authors Refuse to Fade Away

    Older Authors Refuse to Fade Away

    Claire Baldry, left, 63, and Maggie Christensen 73, authors still in their prime.

    The older I get, the more I prefer to read books by authors who write realistically about people my age and older. Maybe I once found it funny to see older people as “comedy characters,” but that humor has long worn thin.

    Instead, let’s write books about how older, experienced workers are the first to “face redundancy” because it’s cheaper to pay the young. At the age of 53, I think about these things more.

    Books and authors I used to enjoy now seem to be very juvenile. Dialogue that sounded witty when I was younger now grates on my ears like it was written by, and for, 12-year-olds. And characters my age and above seem to revert to stereotype and do not think and act with any kind of nuance or maturity.

    Where are the books for people like me? For grownups? For those who really know what it’s like to face ageist stereotypes?

    And that’s what I focused on in this 2018 episode of my IndieVoices podcast for the Alliance of Independent Authors. I talked to Claire Baldry, 63 years old, and an indie author who is also an advocate for older authors; Maggie Christensen, 73 years old, who writes about mature women facing life-changing situations. Click the arrow below for the interviews.

  • Ask 72 Jews About God, Get Infinite Opinions

    Ask 72 Jews About God, Get Infinite Opinions

    To study Judaism is almost like studying physics. Everything seems to follow straightforward rules, until you take a closer and closer look and you see those bizarre quantum effects. Jews have no pope, no central authority, so not only does practice of Judaism vary greatly, so does the Jewish concept of God.

    Now, add in the Jewish philosophers (as opposed to theologians), and the Jewish concept of God can vary even more. So, what is the Jewish concept of God, exactly? That’s the heavy question for which I sought answers when I interviewed Andrew Pessin, professor of philosophy at Connecticut College.

    He had just finished a book called The Jewish God Question: What Jewish Thinkers Have Said about God, the Book, the People, and the Land. He put together a set of questions using different voices throughout history—everyone from the secular Zionist leader Theodor Herzl to Chabad’s Rabbi Sholom Dov Baer Schneersohn.

    The result was a great collection of writings from Jewish thinkers throughout history.

    In this article for Publishers Weekly, we discussed what Jews think about when they think about God. But, here is the “writer’s cut” version, with more questions and answers than PW can fit. Thank you to Andrew for a great interview.

    Howard Lovy: Everything seems to follow rules when you look at Judaism, but the closer you look the more chaotic everything seems. What was your goal in putting this book together?

    Andrew Pessin: One is the selfish goal of, I wanted to learn this material. I realized I was becoming an expert on medieval Catholic theology, but it started occurring to me I knew almost nothing about my own Jewish background and heritage. When you’re reading Western philosophy, the Jews are largely excluded from the canon. So I had this kind of awakening a few years back where I said, “What were the Jews saying during all these centuries that I’ve been studying?”

    The second is over the past 10 years or so I’ve developed a general interest in spreading the wealth of philosophy to nonprofessional philosophers. I would write a scholarly article on Descartes, and 10 people would read it and, as I like to say, eight of them would ignore it and two would criticize it.

    Howard Lovy: When Jews think about God, do they think about a different kind of entity than does a Christian or a Muslim?

    Andrew Pessin: That’s a really deep question and it presupposes that there’s some single unified notion of God within each of those three religions. They have really extremely different conceptions of the divine being within each religion. And what I’m discovering — and this is kind of exhilarating for me — is that a lot of these Jewish thinkers end up not only disagreeing among themselves about the nature of the divine being, but end up saying exactly the same sorts of things the Christians and Muslims have said in their disagreements.

    A lot of these Jewish thinkers end up not only disagreeing among themselves about the nature of the divine being, but end up saying exactly the same sorts of things the Christians and Muslims have said in their disagreements.

    Howard Lovy: Do you approach this subject as a philosopher or a theologist? What is the difference?

    Andrew Pessin: Great question. The distinction would be based on the idea that for the philosopher, there are no constraints on what he or she thinks other than sensory experience, historical experience, and reason. In theology, they start off with certain givens and those givens might be, for example, there’s a scripture and that scripture is accepted to be divine in nature. It’s sort of roughly the distinction between reason and revelation, where the philosopher is guided by reason and the theologist — not being irrational or anti-rational — has an additional constraint in his or her reasoning.

    Howard Lovy: You put together a really ambitious set of questions through these different voices throughout history. What is God? Is there life after death? Is there a soul? Why are we here? After reading this, will I get a better idea of the answers?

    Andrew Pessin: I wasn’t attempting to answer those questions. I was attempting to raise them because in the history of Jewish thinkers, these are among the major questions that they grapple with. You know the famous adage: you ask two Jews, get three opinions. As I like to say about this book, I asked 72 Jewish thinkers and got more opinions than I could actually count. I leave it to the reader to decide in the end.

    Howard Lovy: Will this book answer questions about what Jews believe about X, Y, or Z?

    Andrew Pessin: It may not give you the definitive answers. You’ll notice that even though Maimonides was certainly the towering figure of the Middle Ages, and arguably the towering figure in the whole history of Jewish philosophy, that doesn’t stop people from disagreeing with him on absolutely every single issue. Maimonides is not the pope and you can quote me on that.

    Howard Lovy: Who was the best writer?

    Andrew Pessin: Abraham Isaac Kook, the first official state rabbi in Palestine, is just a beautiful poetic mystical writer. It’s so very challenging to figure out exactly what he’s saying and to put it into comprehensible English. I did try to do that in one short chapter in the book, but reading him is really stimulating in a kind of mystical way. So that’s what comes to mind for me.

  • Author Says Enough Already with Tikkun Olam, or Healing the World; That’s Not Judaism

    Author Says Enough Already with Tikkun Olam, or Healing the World; That’s Not Judaism

    The first interview I did as Publishers Weekly’s Senior Jewish Correspondent (I just invented that title. I freelance for PW on Jewish issues.) was with conservative author Jonathan Neumann. He argues that Tikkun Olam, or “repairing the world,” is a dangerous hijacking of what was once a minor liturgical metaphor and turning it into a call for liberal politics.

    The author is English and he critiques American Jews’ perspective of Jewish values, including Tikkun Olam, which he says has redirected the Jewish community toward liberalism. He thinks this is a bad thing.

    My own opinions on this were immaterial to the story. But here’s what I think about Tikkun Olam (which has definitely reached peak saturation in cultural Judaism). Judaism has stayed alive and relevant for millennia because of its ability to adapt with the times. Tikkun Olam was a little-known Talmudic metaphor before progressive Jews took it as a central tenet.

    Tikkun Olam: Just a Minor Metaphor?

    One generation’s minor liturgical metaphor can be another’s most-visible trappings of religious fervor. The Haredim base some of their dress and behavior on single Torah passages that could arguably even be metaphors not meant to be taken literally. So it is with Tikkun Olam.

    I realize that this is probably an inadequate, largely semantic, defense of Tikkun Olam. I’m still working it through. It comes down to how every single Jewish thinker of every denomination has told me in multiple interviews over 35 years that “cultural Judaism” is not sustainable. Yet, still, it survives.

    One generation’s minor liturgical metaphor can be another’s most-visible trappings of religious fervor. The Haredim base some of their dress and behavior on single Torah passages that could arguably even be metaphors not meant to be taken literally. So it is with Tikkun Olam.

    Is Social Justice Judaism Sustainable?

    There have been generations of Jews sustaining their Jewishness on social justice — if not specifically by that name, then in how they live their lives and careers they choose. So, is rabbinic Judaism  needed for Jewish values? When I was at JTA, I used to write stories about alleged lack of affiliation of US Jews. But what I found was a great amount of devotion to salad-bar Judaism. I never knew why this was always explained to me as a bad thing.

    During my wilderness years, those 16 years between when I quit JTA and stopped writing about Judaism and when I picked it up again in 2016, I was still very grounded in Jewish thought even as I went through various crises. I’m not the only one. I’ll write more on this in future.

    On a side note: For this story, I also interviewed Adam Bellow, editorial director St. Martin’s Press imprint All Points Books. Adam is the son of one of my literary heroes, Saul Bellow.

    Here’s an excerpt and link to the story.

    Author Asks, is Repairing the World Ripping Judaism Apart?

    “I’m not trying to make a partisan argument. It’s more a question of [are] these politics, and particularly the more liberal, the more radical politics we see within the Tikkun Olam movement, justified by biblical and rabbinic texts in the way that is claimed? I would suggest that they’re not.”

    Read my interview with Jonathan Neumann in Publishers Weekly.

  • What’s Up With Wattpad?

    What’s Up With Wattpad?

    In this episode from my IndieVoices podcast archive from June 2018, I feature an interview and a reading by Wattpad user Jandra Sutton, a special interview with Ashleigh Gardner, deputy general manager of Wattpad Studios.

    If you think your kids aren’t reading books like you did when you were young, they may just be doing something more important: reinventing the way books are written and read. It’s collaborative, it’s a need for instant reaction from friends, and, if you haven’t already guessed it, it’s Wattpad: a reading and writing and social network service that has your kids’ attention, and increasingly, adult writers, too, along with major studios like Netflix and Hulu, which are adapting Wattpad stories.

    Jandra Sutton, author: My first guest is Jandra Sutton, who seems to have made the most out of the platform. A couple of years ago, she jumped onto the platform to hone her writing skills with fanfiction, anonymously. There, she developed a fan base, finally outed herself with her real name, and felt confident enough to self-publish a book called Fragile, based on her Wattpad work.

    I asked her how she feels about making her writing available for a lot of strangers to critique.

    “It’s still terrifying to this day, every time I post something on Wattpad because, obviously, this is the first draft,” Sutton said. “First drafts are usually terrible 99 percent of the time. But one of the invaluable things about Wattpad is that I get real-time critiques on my work as I’m writing it.”

    ashleigh-gardner-300x300Ashleigh Gardner, Wattpad Studios: She runs the publishing side of the business, working with publishers around the world to help authors get book deals, self-publish, and work on projects directly with retailers. So, if you’re a Wattpad author and you hear from Ashleigh, that’s bound to be good news. She invites more indie authors to try the service.

    “I’d love to see more of your audience log on and try Wattpad,” Gardner said. “I think there’s a story for everyone there. There are over 65 million members that have written over 565 million stories and that number keeps growing … it’s a great place for writers to find readers for their stories.”

    Listen to the AskALLi IndieVoices Broadcast

     

  • Comrade Stalin Met His Match With Author Arkady Polishchuk, Former Jewish Refusnik

    Comrade Stalin Met His Match With Author Arkady Polishchuk, Former Jewish Refusnik

    Arkady Polishchuk, a former Soviet Jewish Refusnik, reminds me of my grandfather, with his Old World sense of irony and humor, mixed with the slight pathos of age and long suffering.

    I first came into contact with Arkady when I interviewed him for this Publishers Weekly feature I wrote about him when he released his previous book, Dancing on Thin Ice: Travails of a Russian Dissenter (Doppelhouse Press, July 2018). I was impressed not only by the depth and breadth of his experiences as a witness to history, but the compelling way in which he tells the stories of his life—with both wit and wisdom.

    I was privileged to have received an early draft of a few chapters of his next book, As I Was Burying Comrade Stalin. Again, he not only made history come alive through excellent storytelling, he presents this history from a unique perspective. There are very few living people who can relate this story of life under communist rule—first being taught to worship Stalin, then slowly, as he came of age, realizing that he had been lied to all his life. We are there with him, experiencing these historic moments from Arkady’s point of view.

    Arkady and I have corresponded a great deal since then. I hope to be his editor for when he finds a publisher for Comrade Stalin. He’s a great guy to talk to. Humble, but with a sharp wit.

    Meanwhile, please enjoy this feature I wrote about Arkady for Publishers Weekly.

    A Jewish Refusnik Who Fights for Evangelical Rights? Only in Russia

    How did a Soviet Jewish Refusnik, raised an atheist communist, come to be a powerful voice on behalf of Russian evangelical Christians? No, this isn’t one of those “walked into a bar” jokes. It’s a true story of Cold War bravery and danger told in Dancing on Thin Ice: Travails of a Russian Dissenter(Doppelhouse Press, July) by Arkady Polishchuk.

    Read the whole article here.

    You can also read more of my Publishers Weekly work here.

  • Rabbi Firestone Opens My Eyes on Holocaust Trauma Inherited by Future Generations

    Rabbi Firestone Opens My Eyes on Holocaust Trauma Inherited by Future Generations

    My Publishers Weekly interview with Rabbi Tirzah Firestone was an eye-opener to me inherited Holocaust trauma because it helped me fill in the gaps on why anti-Semitism anywhere in the world has such an impact on me. When I read about anti-Jewish violence or bigotry, I do feel like it’s happening to me, personally, even if it’s halfway around the world to people I do not know.

    In our interview, we talk about how descendants of Holocaust survivors inherited the trauma, and how we can channel it productively. This hit home for me.

    The phenomenon is real—kids, grandkids of Holocaust survivors suffer from extreme stress.

    The solution is to do what many Jews already do—channel that pain into easing the suffering of others. Yes, she used the words “Tikkun Olam,” which causes many an eye-roll these days because it is an overused expression. But, you know, I have no problem with the idea of repairing the world and making it a part of your own private Judaism. I’ll explore Tikkun Olam more in future posts.

    For Firestone, though, doing things for other people, picking “Jewish” professions like medicine, social work, is all part of healing from this genetic memory of suffering.

    “The main point is that that we can’t change past events, but we can change the outcome of those events. And we can’t change tragic history, but we can choose the legacy that we want to pass on,” Firestone said.

    Read the whole interview, linked below.

    Rabbi Examines Inherited Holocaust Trauma

    In August 2017, when neo-Nazis rallied in Charlottesville, Va., Rabbi Tirzah Firestone received calls from her worried congregants in Boulder, Co. who, perhaps for the first time in their lives, felt personally victimized by Nazis. They couldn’t sleep at night. It seemed to them it was happening all over again. More here

  • Audio Author Interview After Sexual Abuse, Rachel Thompson Fixes What’s ‘Broken’

    Audio Author Interview After Sexual Abuse, Rachel Thompson Fixes What’s ‘Broken’

    Rachel Thompson is an author and book marketing expert. Her series of books, Broken Pieces and Broken Places, about coming to terms with sexual abuse she suffered as a child, has inspired many other survivors to come out of hiding and seek help. In this episode, Rachel talks about the abuse, but also how writing the books and helping others brought healing after almost a lifetime of guilt and trauma. Her books and online forums, including her Twitter forum #SexAbuseChat, have been an inspiration to many other trauma survivors.

    Highlights

    On how she began writing about her childhood sexual abuse trauma: “Something like a death of somebody very close to you, or who used to be very close to you … can be a turning point in any person’s life, particularly for a writer, because we carry so much in our heart and in our brains that at some point we just need to get it out.”

    On readers’ reaction to her first ‘Broken‘ book: “The response was overwhelming. People came to me from all over the world, emailing me DMing me, PMing me, with their own stories of being sexually abused. But they didn’t want to tell anybody else. They didn’t want to share it publicly, but I constantly was asked, ‘Can you create some kind of forum where we could get together and talk about it?”

    Author reading: Rachel reads an excerpt from Broken Places called “Aftershocks.”

    It began as IndieVoices, when I was executive editor at Foreword Reviews, and is now called Inspirational Indie Authors in its incarnation for the Alliance of Independent Authors. But no matter what it’s called, I enjoy making these podcasts because I get to interview some incredibly brilliant authors. Listen to some of my other audio interviews with indie authors.