Category: Life Experiences

Melted Brains

personby Gillian Polack
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These last few days I reacted to all the not-so-good things in my life by writing a story. The trigger was being told about six different interpretations of Dickens’ Christmas Carol in far too close succession. I’m not quite finished the story yet, but I had such a strong reaction to my small reveal that I am sitting back, bewildered.

The tale is set in a world I’ve used before, the same Jewish Australia that provides the setting for The Wizardry of Jewish Women. Judith, one of the protagonists of Wizardry has a boyfriend that people who read my short stories will know. Secret knowledge. Rather important secret knowledge. The story read with that knowledge is quite different to the story read without it. That’s not what my readers were reacting to. I didn’t tell them about Ash, who happens to be the Demon King and to be an outstanding student of Torah.

I still don’t know why these small words elected any excitement at all, I talked about writing “a Jewish Arthurian story, and the narrator is drunk.” The thing is, it being me, it’s not an adventure story. It’s a cosy tale set in the Middle Ages and is full of rabbis and people who think far too highly of themselves. Judith has opinions about everything and most of her knowledge is borrowed. Maimonides and Rashi are both mentioned, far too often and… trust me, this is not the story most people think of when they dream of Jewish Arthurian matters.

There is much Middle Ages in my life again, which is why it intrudes into my fiction. My next novel (the much-delayed one) is partly set in a Middle Ages. Not our Middle Ages, but close to it. It’s not our Middle Ages because I wanted to break away from the standard way we talk about history and bring people to life using… actual history. I always get into such trouble when I do this.

My non-fiction also contains the Middle Ages. Both of them have so much more than the Middle Ages, as does this little story. I think I might be living irony. Or is that sarcasm? We are in the middle of a heat wave in Australia and when the heat melts my brain the difference between irony and sarcasm melts along with it. This means my short story is the product of a melted brain and has a drunken narrator.

Pity my supporters on Patreon, because they will read it sometime in the next week. If they like it, I might consider editing it further and seeing if anyone wants to publish it*.

*I send all my new fiction out to patrons in a private newsletter. For some publishers this still counts as first publication and for others, not. In any case, I never send it out before it’s been given a thorough going-over, based partly on my patrons’ reactions to it. It’s the difference between a good first draft and a story ready to be shown to the world. My patrons get to see who I am as a writer, not just who I am when I have the help of amazing editors. I do not know what they will make of the drunken narrator nor the melted brain.

In Troubled Times: Numbing Out

personby Deborah J. Ross
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I first posted this on December 12, 2016, right after the presidential election. I’m putting it up again as a reminder of how important it is to take care of our mental well-being in troubled times.

I have long understood the dangers and seductions of overwork. I’ve frequently coped with stress by balancing my checkbook or going over budget figures. Or reading and replying to every single email in my Inbox. It needn’t be intellectual work: scrubbing bathrooms or reorganizing closets works just fine. All these things involve attention to detail and (to one degree or another) restoring a sense of order to an otherwise capricious and chaotic world. I come by it honestly; when I was growing up, I saw my parents, my father in particular, plunge into work in response to the enormous problems our family faced. He and I are by no means unique. We live in a culture that values work above personal life and outward productivity over inner sensitivity.

“Work” doesn’t have to result in a measurable output. Anything that demands attention (preferably to the exclusion of all else) will do. Reading news stories or following social media accomplish the same objective and have the same result: they put our emotions “on hold.”

As I’ve struggled to detach from the waves of upsetting news, I have noticed an increased tendency in myself to overwork. It occurs to me that I reach for those activities in a very similar way other folks might reach for a glass of liquor or a pack of cigarettes (or things less legal). Or exercising to exhaustion, or any of the many things we do to excess that keep us from feeling. There’s a huge difference between the need to take a  breather from things that distress us and using substances or activities in a chronic, ongoing fashion to dampen our emotional reactions. The problem is that when we do these things, we shut off not only the uncomfortable feelings (upset, fear, etc.) but other feelings as well.

The challenge then becomes how to balance the human desire for “time-out” from the uncertainties and fears of the last few weeks and not numbing out. In my own experience, the process of balancing begins with awareness of what tempts me, whether I indulge in it or not. Is it something that can be good or bad, depending on whether I do it to excess? (Exercise, for example.) Or something best avoided entirely? (Some forms of risk-taking behavior, like unprotected sex with strangers.) If it can be both a strength and a weakness, how do I tell when enough is enough, or what a healthy way to do this is? Continue reading “In Troubled Times: Numbing Out”…

Such a week…

personby Gillian Polack
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Part of the annual report into antisemitism in Australia was released last week. Also last week (just before I left Melbourne to come home, in fact) a synagogue was firebombed. Thankfully there were no casualties in the attack. But..

I am now facing the deluge of comments one gets after the news was released. So many of those talking about the attack believe it is by “Zionist Jews.” I want to stand up and shout that every single one of these people is a bigot. They’re using the fourth definition to “Zionist” to replace most of the poison inherent in the words they’re using to replace “Zionist”, such as “Jews.” This definition reflects the emotion and hate in the mind of the user. It does not reflect Australian Jews at all. Take my siblings: some support Israel, some don’t, some are quiet on the subject because they believe it’s not anyone else’s business. And one of us (not me) is Ultra-Orthodox and has links to the burned synagogue. None of us have any wish to burn down any synagogue, much less one filled people books we love and people who know members of our family.

I saw walls of Talmud charred to black and it reminded me of the times when (in Europe) supersession saw Jews expelled from their homeland of hundreds (possibly up to 1400) years, and in other places saw cartloads and cartloads and cartloads and cartloads of Talmuds burned. Those burnings were to make certain that Jewish culture and religion was frozen at the time of Jesus, because that was the only relationship with Jews that these particular Christians could handle. Note I said “these particular Christians.” Most contemporary Christians and contemporary Muslims do not condone barbaric acts. They are not the people crying that all Jews need to be deported from Australia, to make way for a return of the old White Australia.

The ‘old White Australia’ is a fiction. “White Australia” is complex but has very little in common with what those shouting think. I want to sit down and teach them some history. Literally, in terms of people, before Europeans came it was not White at all, and when the First Fleet arrived… there were Jewish convicts on it. The members of the public shouting about Australian Jews not being White and not being wanted here has returned, but I’m still told I have White privilege. Most of those telling me I have White privilege and should be deported came from families who arrived here after my own. And the shouts are louder right now.

I can give you the old and new definitions of Zionism if definitions can help you deal. I can also give you a photograph. The photograph is more, fun, so I’ll only give you the definitions if you want them (just ask!).

Why the photograph? The Myer Christmas windows are a feature of the Melbourne landscape at this time of year. This year, the pro-Palestinians marchers (some of them are the same people who want me deported and blame Jews for everything that hurts) protested against them. We all looked for reasons. Maybe it was because Myer was founded by someone Jewish… except Sidney Myer converted to Christianity. Maybe they hate all people who have Jewish ancestry? That’s the purity of blood notion, used to hurt those who could not shake off their Jewishness enough in Early Modern Spain and Spanish territories. If you’re not familiar with this long moment in the history of the Spains, look up ‘Torquemada.’  Jewish ownership of business? Myer is not owned by Jews. This means that either the Christmas windows themselves are deeply offensive (and aimed at children, therefore problematic) or those protesting them are idiots. I’ll let you decide:

 

The Irwins looking at parrots in the Australian Outback, Myer windows 2024
Melbourne, December 2024

Some Days

personby Gillian Polack
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I’m writing this late on my Monday evening because I was so worried about what was happening in my hometown. Not where I live now (Canberra) but where my family has lived since 1858. Outside a synagogue not at all far from my own childhood one, and half a suburb away from where my mother lives, there was going to be a pro-Palestine demonstration. Given what happened in Montreal over the weekend, I did not like this at all. Given what happened a few minutes away last year, during a Friday service on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, where my mother’s first cousin was one of the people ‘evacuated’ into a violent anti-Jewish crowd… I was very worried.

I’ve just seen the video clips of what transpired and Australia can sometimes be quite uniquely itself. Before I saw the video clips, however, I realised the angry crowd might be a bit smaller than last time. This notice was circulated on the interwebz shortly before the event:

Protesters still came. They were thoroughly covered, except for their eyes, and while this might have been sensible to hide their identities, it wasn’t such a good idea. Melbourne was not as hot as Canberra today, but Canberra was in the thirties… so these poor blokes must have been seriously uncomfortable.

I saw a bunch of clips of what happened after they arrived and there was no violence. Two of the pro-Palestine protesters were gently ushered into a police van and I’m pretty sure I heard someone say “Have a good day.” The angry violent Jews shouted “Go home. Leave us alone” in unison. well away from where the protesters stood.  I interpreted this (since I come from that community, I trust my interpretation) as “You’ve driven half an hour or an hour to be a pain, now just turn around and drive back, please.” They waved Israeli flags and Australian flags. They sang Hatikvah (mostly off-key) and several of them used the great Australian salute to the group of protesters.

No-one was hurt. Everyone got their point across, including the police. The worst loss was to the dignity of those who were scared of the young woman who led the “Go home” shout.

I wish more protests were like this.

Some Thoughts on Gender and Community

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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One of the many things my sweetheart and I bonded over when we first got together was a love of Whileaway, the place where people live in Joanna Russ’s story “When It Changed.”

We’d both like to live there – that is, in the there before it changed.

I should point out that my sweetheart is a man and, for those of you who haven’t read the story, only women lived in Whileaway.

But he would, in fact, fit into that world rather well, despite being essentially and comfortably male.

It was, in fact, by being around him that I realized the most accurate statement of my gender is “not male.” That’s despite the fact that I’m the one with a sword and a black belt and, even though I know better, much more likely to end up in a physical fight.

I’m not talking about the kind of masculinity we often discuss as “testosterone poisoning” (though testosterone is not nearly as powerful as many believe) or the toxic masculinity of the fascists who just got elected.

It’s not as easily defined as that. It’s a maleness that is not uncomfortable in an all-female setting while still being itself.

I wanted to do many things in my life that were coded as male, but I never wanted to be a man. I am resolutely not girlie, nowhere near as feminine in interests or appearance as many of the trans women I know, but I am still comfortably a woman.

I set my pronouns as she or they because I don’t have a lot invested in my gender identity, but I would, in fact, correct you if you called me “he.” I am not male. (I wouldn’t be offended, but then I am not someone who gets subjected to intentional misgendering, another issue entirely.)

It isn’t likely to happen. I may be big and aggressive and loud, with a black belt and a law degree and an unwillingness to let people walk over me, but people don’t ever seem to take me as male. I don’t know if it’s the hair or the way my body’s shaped or just my presence, but something about me seems to say “female” to most people in much the same way that my quieter and calmer sweetheart’s presence seems to say “male.”

In fact, I suspect it’s my apparently obvious womanness that makes some men get very angry when I don’t turn tail or apologize profusely when they try to walk over me (or run me down with their cars). Women are supposed to quail before men like them, and I do not.

I often put that attitude down to years in martial arts, but as I reflect on it, I think the attitude was there long before I started training. Training made it safer for me to stand up to such men because it gave me tools to use in response, but I was always going to demand my rights.

Funny, though, while those men scream at me and clearly want to hit me or grab me, they never do. That might be because even as they are dismissing me as a girl and showing their contempt for me, they can read something in my presence that tells them it would be a bad idea to lay a hand on me.

I hope that’s the case. I make every effort to convey the attitude that messing with me is a bad idea. I may look like an old woman, but don’t assume I’m harmless just because you have some stereotypical idea of old women.

Continue reading “Some Thoughts on Gender and Community”…

Travelling from Australia

personby Gillian Polack
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People are asking me “Are you going to Belfast next year?” and “Are you going to Seattle?” and “Will you return to Germany?” and “Do we get to see you in person in Baltimore?” I always explain to European friends and North American friends that the airfares are large and more and more often they reply, “Well, it’s difficult for me, too.” And it is.

Yet the obstacles appear, to me, higher than they were.

I wondered if I was shouting about fire when it was merely a match that was burning. I know that my recent trip was difficult because I needed more physical help than I could afford. Several friends stepped up and made it happen, but there were too many times when I was nearly stranded with no recourse, simply because of the health issues. I still have nightmares about 5 moments that were well-nigh impossible.

For any future trip that takes more than 8 hours, I will need help at the other end and along the way. I have to accept that I cannot do things alone easily, even things that look perfectly straightforward to other people.

Shouting at me, “Get a scooter” when I’m struggling at a science fiction conference does not help, and (what happened a lot in Germany) someone walking by stopping to pick up my bag and get it over the hump or up the steps helps immensely. Neither of these are standard for any trip, but they’re what I experienced. Five times in one day in Glasgow I was told to get a scooter or a wheelchair, when, in fact, if I’d done that I’d have been unable to walk at all long term (or even a few days after).

This is not the first time that strangers and friends alike wanted to treat me in the way they thought chronically ill and disabled people should be treated and not consider (or even ask about) my actual circumstances. Because I can walk a little, most friends would say, “Come with me” and leave me at the other end with no thought that, since I had not planned to get to that place, I had no way of getting back in time for programme or for transport: I have to plan.

All this means is that I have to plan more when I travel. I need to be able to see what I can do and then achieve it.

I had to cancel visits to key sites in Germany because the world and my health simply did not permit it.

I had to cancel a half day at Glasgow because there were problems with a room for the panel I was on. All I needed to do to make everything work, was to sit. Not to sit and move and sit and move and sit and move – just to sit. Standing had fewer after-effects, so I stood and awaiting until the re-assigned room could be replaced with something else and the missing computer could also be replaced. All this happened, and was a miracle of reorganisation, but I had not sat when I had planned to. I could have done it on a panel or in a lounge chair, but intermittent movement with that particular pain meant that after that panel, I missed everything that didn’t take place in a single comfortable chair. I was not even able to walk back to the hotel and lie down. I was very lucky that afternoon because a friend stayed with me and we had a lovely evening and she got drinks and found mutual friends and… listened and paid attention to what I was saying about what I could do. She also made sure I got safely back to the hotel at the end of the evening, which was not a given because my direction sense fails when I am at that point of pain. Also, she did not treat me as a charity case, but as a delightful friend and who she was happy to spend time with. This friend resulted in there being no sour taste in my mouth from my incapacity. She’s wonderful. I did miss 8 hours of programming I had intended to enjoy, however.

All these are reasons for being careful how I travel, not avoiding long-distance travel entirely.However, I’ve now acquitted all the grants I was given to get to Europe. I took a moment to do some calculations after the last form went through.

In future, I don’t think I can get further than New Zealand without financial help. The recent trip cost the equivalent of 45% of my annual income. That was without adding enough assistance to make the trip at all comfortable, (which is what I was unable to do this time) and I’m still paying physically for the return journey. I could only pay that amount with help from the friends I stayed with and from the bodies that gave me grants, and, if I wanted an equivalent trip to anywhere in Europe or North America for a conference or for research without as many problems, it would cost me 60% of my annual income.

Without grants it’s just not possible. That’s easy to explain. What is not easy to explain is that many non-academic programmes and some academic programmes are pulled together at the last minute in these days of everyone working with too much pressure. If I’m not giving an academic paper or on programme, I cannot claim that amount on taxes. If I do not know about programme early enough, that adds $1,000-3,000 to the total cost of the trip because airlines play games with last minute travellers who need to arrange things carefully so that they don’t hurt for weeks. That brings the cost potentially to over 55% of my income if I go the route that hurts, and over 70% if I plan to hurt much less.

I will miss everyone, but I can’t travel long distances under these circumstances, however much I adore being with people and researching and discovering amazing things and listening to brilliant people. Also, the next person from Europe or North America who claims the same experience will be sympathised with, because over 45-70% of one’s income for one journey is quite scary.

If anyone has solutions and would like to see me in person, I would love to talk. In the interim, please just say “I’m sorry – I wish you could do these things” rather than telling me “I suffer just as much as you” while planning your next trip.

My Day at the Poll

personby Madeleine Robins
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In an pre-emptive attempt to keep myself busy on Election Day, I volunteered as a poll worker.  10/10 would totally do again. It was not only a way to keep myself from doom scrolling all day yesterday, but I met some good neighbors, and spent the day supporting, in a tiny small way, Democracy. As I write this (on Tuesday night before falling into bed–I reported to the Poll for setup at 6am, and got home at about 9:30) I know nothing much about how the election went.

What I do know is that–at least in California, although I have no reason to believe it’s vastly different anywhere else–election fraud would be very hard to pull off. The number of cross-checks at every step, from who is voting to what happens to the ballots (in California they are paper ballots that are tallied by electronic scanners–but the ballots themselves are preserved under lock and key) to the number crunching–is considerable. The people I worked with were diligent–both about doing the work and about not talking about the election. We had a lot of fun (there is a lot of downtime) but we all took the work seriously. I come to the conclusion that some of the people who froth at the mouth about election security have no real idea of how modern elections work. If I ran the Zoo, I might consider a policy where everyone has to work at a poll once in their lives–just to inject a little reality into their worldview.

At my polling place the number of people who voted with ballots on site was fairly small; most of the people who came by were dropping off their vote-by-mail ballots the day of. This makes sense in San Francisco, where the ballots were four pages long (including two double-sided pages of propositions on the state and city level) and required a cheat sheet or an extraordinary memory.There were the ballots that had been sent well in advance (VBMR, in poll roster speak, for “Voted By Mail-Received”). So our relatively small precinct overwhelmingly seemed to prefer filling out their ballot before the Day itself. I was one of them (since I didn’t know where I would be working, I opted to vote several weeks ago).

There were a lot of children–my neighborhood has a lot of kids in it, and it seemed like every parent wanted to bring their kids to expose them to the Civic Virtue that is voting. Since I did the same thing with my kids, I totally endorse this. We gave out I Voted stickers to a lot of children (but I note that almost all the adults who voted or dropped off ballots asked for their stickers too, with an almost childlike glee).

There were some… odd moments. Like the very nice older guy who announced to us that he was voting for “Trump of course”–we can’t and won’t ask, but he seemed to think it was a given. Because his eyesight was poor, he asked for assistance in completing his ballot, which he was given. Then his foreign-born wife came in; he reminded her that she was voting for Trump too, and while he didn’t exactly hang over her he made it pretty clear what the expectation was. She too asked for assistance in filling out the ballot, which she received. Both my co-worker and I were a little uncomfortable, but the husband’s behavior didn’t rise to the level of interference, and we’re bound by all sorts of rules about what we can do.

There was a guy down the street from the building (we were in the library–very plush surroundings when many San Francisco polling places are in neighborhood garages) for about an hour wearing a HARRIS WALZ t-shirt–but not accosting anyone. There are strict rules about how near to a polling place campaign materials of any sort can be.

At eight o’clock when the polls closed, we swung into action. Each of us had tasks: two people to count the vote-by-mail and provisional ballots, two people to print out the tally from the electronic scanner (a copy of the tally is posted outside the polling place ASAP) and get the cast ballots ready. All the materials are handed over to the Sheriff (including the SD card from the scanner) in sealed containers, and the numbers on the seals are recorded. All of the materials that had been put to use during the day were folded up and put into order so that the Department of Elections minions can pick them up.

A note about those Minions: when we got to the poll this morning there were boxes and bags of materials–ballots, provisional ballot envelopes, privacy folders, EDU ballots (for non-citizens with children under the age of 18 who are–in California–permitted to vote in school board elections only), and so much other stuff. Including those seals (yellow for beginning of the day, blue for the end of the day) which must be accounted for–every time we broke a seal it went into the Inspector’s folder–the inspector is like the team lead. There are signs of various sorts, and voting desks, and the accessible ballot machine (which can be used by anyone, but allows you to vote with a touch screen and various assistive devices) as well as the electronic scanner. And pens and hand sanitizer and masks and posters and … so much stuff. All meticulously organized and stored until the poll workers deploy them at the start of the day. At one point, as I do, I got lost in the image of all of the DoE Minions (as I thought of them). They do this for every precinct in the city, county, and very likely the state. There was nothing missing that we needed. It was thoughtfully and thoroughly done.

And now I am home, and very ready for my bed. And there are people for whom the job is only beginning, as they take in the tallies and the used ballots (and the unused ballots, which must be as carefully accounted for as those that are used, and those that are “spoiled” and voided).

There are a lot of moving parts to Democracy. It’s kind of awesome. As awful and contentious as this election season has been, seeing these parts up close gave me hope. Now, I’m going to bed.

ETA: The next morning. The national results are emphatically not what I wanted. But I stand by my day at the Poll and what I took from it. And I’m going to hang on as hard as hell to that.

When Events Collide

personby Gillian Polack
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This is the year of many confluences. I want to note just three, because those earlier in the year were more confluences of grief and do not need revisiting.

The first one is tomorrow, that is to say, November 5.

First, there is the US election. I am hoping that the US turns out and votes in massive numbers and that the outcome is one of the better ones. This is not an easy election and I’m very glad I don’t have to deal with some of the issues everyone’s handling right now. I hope things improve and that clever voting opens the door to US lives being significantly better. I also hope that the idiots learn to listen and understand what rampant fools they can be, but this is probably a pipe dream.

The election is, obviously, the biggest thing tomorrow. The second biggest is a rather fraught historical memory. Australia mostly doesn’t celebrate Guy Fawkes Night any more, but I found out yesterday that New Zealand does. We never burned figures, even when we had bonfires and fireworks and for this I am so very grateful. I have to admit that it’s kinda appropriate that there is a history memory on the same day that the US is busy creating its own history memory.

The third thing tomorrow is a race. Not the same type of race as the US one, but a horse race. Victoria (the Australian state, not the city a long way from me) gets a public holiday and most of Australia stops to watch. Tomorrow I won’t, because the friends I usually drink with (because it’s a drinking festival, really) are busy and I have a lot to do and…

I feel as if I’m betraying my childhood with no race and no fireworks, but at least I don’t have to worry about supporting something that really is not kind to horses or an historical event that, in the way it’s celebrated, isn’t that kind to Catholics.

That’s tomorrow’s confluence: the election, Bonfire Night, and the Melbourne Cup.

The next one is on November 11. I might leave it until next week and tell you about it then. Let me just say that only one of the events that collide is celebrated in the US and the UK. Watch this space…

The other collision is a bit longer. December 25 is Christmas this year (as it always is) and, for a wonder, it’s also the start of Chanukah, thanks to a handy leap month last Jewish year. New Year is also Chanukah. So are all the days between the two. I feel it’s a bit of a cheat to call this a confluence, but it’s a fun one because it’s going to tangle all the folks who were finally accepting that Chanukah and Christmas are not on the same dates. The Christian calendar is solar and fixed to the sun. The Jewish calendar is lunar/solar, that is fixed to the moon with solar adjustments. This explains the leap month – the adjustments are a bit bigger because, really, the Moon and the Sun don’t talk to each other and make everything work in harmony.

The shape of the year gives you something to think about if you really, really don’t want to spend more thoughts on the election. The fact that I’m supposed to be frying food in midsummer (for Chanukah) is another useful distraction.

Good luck with your Tuesday confluence!

Embracing the Contradictions

personby Nancy Jane Moore
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In November of 2020, right around the US election, Master Li Junfeng, with whom I studied Sheng Zhen (a practice related to Qigong) while in Austin, offered an online meditation workshop for – if I remember right – 17 days in a row.

I signed up, even though it was at 6 am Pacific Time, since Master Li was in China and they were trying to set it for as reasonable as possible a time for people all over the world. And I made every class.

It was a very good decision, despite the fact that getting up to do something at 6 am is not one of my favorite activities. I sailed through all the election nail-biting and even lessened my pandemic anxiety.

I did keep it up for awhile, but since then I haven’t been all that regular with meditation. I’m trying to get back in the habit now. What with the election, the multiple climate-change-caused disasters, and the fact that even with sane people in our government we haven’t even come close to dealing with public health crises – not to mention what all this stress does to my blood pressure – I need to take time to breathe deeply and find my center every day.

I do Tai Chi daily, but I need the meditation as well.

I’m a bit eclectic at the kind of meditation I practice. I’ve picked up some Zen Buddhist techniques over the years. Master Li’s approach comes out of Taoism, I think. Some days I just focus on my breath. Other days I watch the Qi or Ki (depending on whether I’m channeling Chinese or Japanese practices) flowing through my body.

Sometimes I recite this verse that I believe I learned from a book by the Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn:

Breathing in, I feel my body.
Breathing out, I smile.
Living in the present moment.
This is such a beautiful moment.

And sometimes I try to imagine all the elements of our planet – from the tectonic plates to the oceans to the forests to all the creatures and people – and then go on through the Solar System to the Milky Way to the Universe.

When I do that last version, I remember that I am a part of the universe, and so are all the microbes living inside me as well as everything around me.

I am a tiny speck of the universe and whatever happens or doesn’t happen to me is part of that whole. Continue reading “Embracing the Contradictions”…

Monsters and Books

personby Gillian Polack
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Today I’m dreaming of Jewish monsters. This is the reason: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ranthalix/jewish-monsters-and-magic-trading-cards

I heard about the project because the publisher of The Green Children Help Out is involved in it. There is an increasing number of people who, despite everything that’s going on in the world and all the antisemitism, are enjoying the wild and amazing stories that are part of all the Jewish cultures.

I saw that this weekend at the Virtual International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. R Andrea Lobel  was a guest of honour (who has published a story of mine in Other Covenants – sometimes I think the world is a tiny place) and delivered her plenary on Jewish fantasy.

First, she explained something that had me nodding in sad recognition: right now, a lot of Jewish writers are being avoided by publishers, by booksellers, by many people. Jewish writers from all over the world, and Israeli writers regardless of religion or political views. My own income from writing has suffered from this. I’m visible in some places, and in others, it’s as if I never existed… and I’m one of those who have experienced less hate. No book sales, but also no death threats.

Seeing the Jewish monster cards made me smile. Something cool and fun is entering this world despite all the hate. Of course I’ve backed them. I told my friends that they are a combined Chanukah and New Year present for me, myself and I, but the reality is that they are a tool with which I can combat ignorance and hate. I can learn more about Jewish monsters… and also use them to teach writing. I miss teaching, and cards like this would make it enormously fun.

Rabbi Lobel talked about the history of Jewish fantasy (English-language history, for she did not have two hours! The Jewish Fantastic goes back a long, long way.) then she gave examples of some modern writers of Jewish fantasy for the attendees. I think you might be interested in her list. I’ll give it to you as a screenshot.

R A Lobel's list of recent Jewish fantasy writing
Jewish fantastic fiction

The thing is – and this is not a small thing – there are hundreds of works. Not so many in Australia, which is another story, and I am still a bit overwhelmed that I’m on the list along with Jack Dann. This means that 50% of the current Jewish Australian fantasy writers who have published novels and short stories containing Jewish stuff is on this list. I doubt anyone in Australia will even notice. Jewish fantasy writers are not included in Jewish Writers’ festivals in Australia and Jewish writers are currently not very welcome in the literary scene. I notice, however, and it means a great deal. Mostly, it means that I shall not give up on my fiction despite the current problems.

This week’s post is not deep. It’s a small moment of joy in a difficult time.