Bride of the Golem Update

Following is a list of the stories I've accepted so far. I am awaiting rewrites from two people, which may or may not be included. When a publisher has picked up the project, we will solicit stories from a few other authors as well. In the meantime, Bride of the Golem will include these works:

Barry Rosenberg "Gershom's Golem"
Norman Rubin "Aunt Bessie and the It"
Sharon Diane King "Feast of the Laughing Cow"
Jim Meirose "Deni-al"
Melissa Yuan-Innes "WWWJD"
Liz Coley "Till Death Does His Part"
Aaron Simon "My Dog the Dybbuk"
Adina Rosenthal "Succubus-in-Law"
E. Mitchell "I Was a Teenage Yeshiva Boy Werewolf"
Eric Joel Bresin "Pig"
David Hendrickson "Floater"
Tonia Brown "Zombie Golem"
Mike DiChristina "Mr. Met"
Ken Liu "The MSG Golem"
David Naimon "Member"
Anna Taborska "Dirty Dybbuk"
A.B.S. Dudevant "The Gingerbread Golem"
Gio Clairval & Daniel Pasetti "Toytfogl"
Gus Ginsburg "By Way of Explanation"
G. Miki Hayden "The Cantor and the Ghost"

I received 211 submissions, of which about 35 were pretty good stories, in my opinion. Thanks to all who sent me their work.

Bride of the Golem submissions are now closed

The Bride of the Golem submissions deadline of April 4 has passed, and though I haven't finished making my way through the mountain of stories I've recently received, I definitely have enough good and publishable stories to fill the anthology. So if you're thinking of submitting, please don't--unless you're one of the four people I asked to revise and resubmit.

I hope to make my decisions on the stories I've received in the next few weeks, and to post a list of included stories by the end of the month.

If you missed the deadline, don't despair. If this project sells as well as I hope, there will be a Return of the Bride of the Golem project in the near future.

Thanks to all who submitted.

Cheers,
Gus Ginsburg

Bride of the Golem Submissions Closing Date

The anthology is starting to fill up. I initially considered a closing date of March 1, but want to give a few more people adequate time to finish their submissions. The official closing date of Bride of the Golem submissions is Monday April 4, 2011. Thank you to all who have sent me your stories.

Call for Stories: Bride of the Golem: An Anthology of Humorous Jewish Horror

I will be editing the book "Bride of the Golem: An Anthology of Humorous Jewish Horror" and am seeking stories to include in it.

The stories can employ a new Jewish twist on a mainstream horror theme (e.g. a tale about a Hassidic vampire mohel or about the Lubbavitchers reanimating Rebbe Schneerson). Or they can reinterpret horrific elements in classical Jewish folklore like the Golem or dybbuk. Or they can venture into entirely new territory.

Stories of this genre that I like: Etgar Keret's "Quanta", Shulamit Hareven's "The Emissary", Shalom Auslander's "Prophet's Dilemma" and Nathan Englander's "Reb Kringle," to name just a few.

Requirements are the following:
1) The story should be humorous.
2) The content of the story should have some connection to Jewish culture deeper than the names of the main characters. Subtle references to Talmud, the prayerbook, Midrash are very welcome, though not required. You don't have to be Jewish to submit, but it helps if you have some prior knowledge of Jewish traditions.
3) It is preferrably unpublished, though I will consider reprints in some cases if the reprint rights are easily negotiated. I will also consider translations of stories from other languages if the rights are easily secured.
4) The length can vary from 500 words to 10,000.
5) The story should be well-written. I shouldn't have to say this.
6) The story should be forwarded to me via e-mail: gus.ginsburg40@gmail.com with the words "Bride of the Golem Submission" in the subject line. Word docs are fine, but not docx format. I prefer doublespaced, 12 point in a readable font. The document should be paginated with your name and title at the bottom of each page. The first page or cover page should include your contact information. You can include a brief bio (up to 250 words) in the body of your submission e-mail.
7) Simultaneous submissions are fine. Let me know immediately if the story is accepted elsewhere.

Here's how the process will work:
I am looking for 10-12 publishable stories by new and upcoming authors, and I will see that you are paid $500 for your story, though it may take some time for you to receive your payment as I have to get an agent and publisher on board with this project. I will also solicit 2-4 stories by better-known authors in order to make this volume a bestseller at Jewish book fairs.

Short Stories

I hope to someday compile a list of short stories I enjoyed. The genre is often overlooked as novels are much more prestigious.

At the very top of my list will be Ingeborg Bachmann's "Undine Goes." Her marvelously poetic prose inspired me to write two short stories of my own, one of which comprises Hans' response to Undine, the narrator of Bachmann's story.

Another I read recently is "The Genie Lamp" by Carolyn Watson. It appears in Slice Magazine, issue 6.

Pitchapalooza

I received an e-mail from Gotham Writers about an event in the Upper East side yesterday. The authors of "The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published" teamed up with a pair of literary agents to hold an American-idol style contest in which people had one minute to pitch their book proposal before them, the crowd, and the rolling cameras.

I attended, for I've recently had the idea to edit a collection of thematically related short stories--Bride of the Golem--an anthology of humorous Jewish horror. However, after standing in line and entering the room it was explained that only those who just purchased the book were eligible to pitch, and not wanting to feel pressured into buying a book I might not need, I declined to do so, and instead watched the procedings with amused detachment.

Twenty-two people pitched their books. Some sounded absolutely dreadful, others, intriguing. First I'll cover the dreck, then the dazzling, the swine before the pearls.

Of the 22, three had already self-published their books. Do they really think a different publisher will republish their works?

Also, three of the 22 were novels involving presidential assassination attempts, though, thankfully, not of our current president. One monotone mumbler described his scenario--a female is elected president, then women's suffrage is repealed, then a civil war of sorts, and in his words, the book becomes like Orwell's 1984 meets Cormack McCarthy's The Road. One of the three assassination novels might actually work, depending on the quality of the writing--it is about a Puerto Rican man who attempts to bump off President Truman.

One of the self-published geniuses is a caucasian who works as a school counselor. He's compiled quotes and pearls of wisdom from African-Americans from Frederick Douglass to President Obama, in a collection titled African-American Core Values. While I don't think his project is republishable in its current format, I have to laud his efforts to reach our city's youth and inspire them.

Self-help and enlightenment books made up three of the 22 proposals. One is a 19-volume Path to Peace by a space cadet who was not ready to take the microphone when her turn arrived, so she went later. Another proposal is "Goddess Entrepreneur", a guide to nonaggressive success using your feminine essence. The author is a transformational life coach. The third of this type was "Coincidentally Charmed" an inspirational autobiography, a mystical journey of discovery of her blessed life, which has been filled with good fortune. Good for her. Maybe her lucky streak will continue and she'll find a publisher.

A few of the proposals were memoirs of persons not so spiritually blessed, and these sounded intriguing. "The Act" is about a child of a mixed race couple (one a Swede, the other, African) growing up in northern Sweden, then moving to the U.S. where he ended up a male prostitute. He says it's a true story, and it was quite unusual and unexpected to hear a black man speaking with a Swedish accent. "Correspondence Unauthorized" is about an African-American woman convicted of a white collar crime, sent to prison, then later going homeless.

The idea which "won" the event was Verne Hoyt's "Parties Unknown", the fruit of 20 years research into his grandparents' involvement in a lynching in southern Georgia in 1930, which culminates with him visiting the victim's widow, and later serving as a pall-bearer in her funeral.

Novel ideas: 1) Voodoo Town a slipstream novel about a detective who must consult the seven African Voodoo Deities to solve a mystery. He described it as Elmore Leonard meets Anne Rice. He should add Neil Gaiman's American Gods to his "similar" list.
2) A novel about a new astrologer who solves problems. Her speech is very polished and perhaps her writing is, as well. Although the concept of pseudo-science in novels causes a knee-jerk revulsion in me, I've seen two writers use Tarot well in their stories--Jeanette Winterson in Gut Symmetries and my colleague Michelle Byington in her novel-in-progress. Michelle's character Tina uses tarot to force/reinforce her interpretation of the world both to herself and to her girlfriend, to tragi-comic effect.
3) 13 Minutes. A novel about a hedonist artist who achieves limited success and ends up on reality television.
4) A Doll House. About a late life marriage to a husband with Alzheimer's, using the construction of doll houses to keep him focused.
5) Kwame Nkrumah (not the former President of Ghana) has an African folk story about a wily hyena.
I think all of these are fine ideas if the writers have the talent to make them shine.

There was one poetry book proposal "For the Godesses", poems about women who have nurtured and inspired him. The author has never had a poem published before. And his recited sample contained nothing novel or gripping in it.

One of the best proposals, and I really hope this gets published is "A Girl's Guide to College Sports Scholarships" by one of ESPN's editors. The panel suggested that she draft a famous female athlete to write an introduction. If my spouse and I are blessed with a daughter, I hope this book is updated and reprinted frequently.

Veterans Day Post

About 15 years ago, my friend Big Jerry and I decided to go hang out in Fredericksburg Texas for a day, only about an hour and a half drive out of Austin. After a nice lunch at one of the town's notable German restaurants and beer gardens (Auslander), we made our way to the Nimitz Museum, named after the famed World War II admiral who grew up in there. Its collection of photographs and artifacts is limited to the Pacific Theater of the war, often overlooked, as people and Hollywood tend to pay more attention to the war in Europe.

Outside the museum we noticed two tour buses.

We walked through the exhibit among groups of elderly veterans, many wearing hats and vests for their unit reunions, learning what a wretched and wrenching experience the Pacific War had been for our soldiers, who often battled malaria, dysentery, incessant drenching rains and undernourishment in addition to the Japanese. In one room we encountered an oversize photograph, maybe four feet by six, of a group of soldiers wading ashore on Tarawa. One of the older vets pointed to a man in the picture and said "That's me." And looking at him and the photo we could see that he was telling the truth. I wonder how it felt seeing his younger self in a museum, in a snapshot of the most horrible day of his life.

The Bubble/Ha-buah

Last night I went to a showing of an Eytan Fox's "The Bubble" (ha-buah in Hebrew). I wanted to like the movie but found it too heavy-handed. Some things were depicted very well--the humiliation of Palestinians forced to pass through Israeli checkpoints was spot-on. Also well shone is Tel Aviv's gay culture. The characters seemed real and believable, except, perhaps Ashraf's brother, named, unsubtly, Jihad. As a writer of stories, though, I dislike clumsiness in the plot as well as distortion of circumstantial nuances.

The first problem: as the young hedonistic peaceniks prepared their "Rave Against the Occupation" they didn't invite Palestinians, citing the problems with checkpoints etc. This would be credible, except that there are over a million Arabs living inside Israel's borders. Why didn't they think to advertise in Arab townships inside Israel? I could see that Fox wanted to show their "Bubble", their complete lack of connection to other communities, but somebody on the rave planning committee should have proposed the idea before it was dismissed.

The second problem: hiring Ashraf at the cafe as "Shimi" and hiding his Palestinian identity, as if Arabs were not allowed employment in restaurants in Tel Aviv--as if the patrons would assume that because he's an Arab, he's a terrorist. I don't buy it.

The third problem: the scene in which a Palestinian woman is killed in Nablus by IDF soldiers. Utterly absurd that a pair of Israeli soldiers (just a pair, not even a squad) pursuing "unseen terrorists" drive up into Nablus and shoot her by accident, when nobody else is even visible... I'm not saying the IDF hasn't killed civilians. Unfortunately, quite the contrary. But in terms of the movie, this could have happened in a more believable and even more powerful way--say, for example, as she's passing through a checkpoint, an Israeli soldier has an accident with his rifle. Then the IDF would have to contain an angry crowd, confronted with witnesses. But unfortunately, the way in which the sister is martyred is cheap and implausible.

The fourth problem: the narrative of Noam's deceased mother, a veritable martyr for coexistence. Too brazenly heroic and sentimental.

Unlike some of the other audience members, I didn't have a problem with the ending, which I'll not give away. But I hope to see future treatments of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a queer lens which are not so ham-fisted and unsubtle.

Another Acceptance Notification

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Bad Jew, Bad Jew!

Yet another year. I bought Rosh Hashanah cards, but haven't filled them out and sent them. If I owe you one, maybe you'll get it by Yom Kippur.