My monthly newsletter is going out tomorrow so if you haven’t signed up for it, I encourage you to do so! It’ll be full of NaNoWriMo advice goodness and a giveaway for a new favorite writing craft book! Also, it’ll have a little thing to/about Toby, my dog (okay, my parents’, but I live with him, so it’s the same thing right now) because today is the 1 year anniversary of adopting him! Come hear about all the crazy stuff Toby ate + get writing advice + book. It’s going to be a great issue.
Meanwhile, I’ll announce here!
That doesn’t look readable in the post editor…so I’ll retype it here:
“Karen Greenberg at Knopf has acquired It’s a Whole Spiel, a YA anthology by Jewish writers, edited by Katherine Locke (l.) and Laura Silverman. With contributions from #ownvoices authors including David Levithan, Nova Ren Suma and more, the anthology will contain contemporary stories with Jewish protagonists who are diverse in sexuality, ability, race and level of religious observance. Publican is planned for fall 2019; Jim McCarthy at Dystel, Goderich & Bourett represented Silverman, and Louise Fury at the Bent Agency represented Locke for world rights.”
That’s right! Laura Silverman (author of the stellar book GIRL OUT OF WATER) and I are co-editing (and contributing) to an anthology by Jewish authors and acquired & edited by a Jewish editor, and it is everything. We don’t have the final contributor list, but I am SO excited for you all to see it when we can share it 😀
If you want to add it to Goodreads, it’s here! Adds to Goodreads do help books. Publishers have started using those to gauge early interest in a book, which helps them decide where marketing dollars go!
Quick FAQ:
Who is it for?
Everyone! Laura and I feel strongly that any teenager should be able to pick up this book and enjoy a collection of contemporary and contemporary-with-slight-speculative-bend stories. Some stories might click more with Jewish readers than others, but it is, at its heart, a book of Jewish characters written by Jewish authors. And that’s what makes it so special.
Why did you need a whole book just about Jewish stories?
Laura might have her own answer for this, but for me, there’s this: I want to see Jewish stories where Jewish people do more things than survive the Holocaust or suffer as victims of antisemitism. And I realize I’ve written a book that is partially set during the Holocaust and am writing another one set during WWII so I’ve definitely contributed to this! But I want today’s Jewish teenagers to know they’re more than victims. And I want today’s teenagers who aren’t Jewish to know Jewish teens are more than the burden of the Holocaust. We have varied lives. We have different skin colors. We practice Judaism differently. We live all around the world. We have adventures. We have parents and siblings and ghosts and hopes and dreams that are informed by and not informed by our Judaism. I want a book to be a celebration of our differences and our commonalities.
I am excited. I hope you are too.
Katherine Locke 