good morning. and welcome to mosaic. i'm pleased to be with you this morning. literacy is a vital source to any society, reading, writing and engagement with language. these are part of the foundation of building any type of healthy culture. it's also national nonfiction writing month and also national novel writing month acht later later in the show we're going to have howard freeman but i'd like to introduce you to two authors. keeper of the scale and speaker who wrote a book called

marriage meetings for a lasting love. welcome, debbie and marsha. shall we say -- >> either. i go by naomi usually. >> how did you each come to the idea of your respective books. how did you come to keeper of the scale? >> i really had a diet buddy. we used to meet at a store similar to the book scene. we ended up talking about anything and everything but not dieting. we gave up on the dieting. one day i was in the store with her and i looked around i thought i have this crazy idea for a book. and from there just took on a life of its own. as circumstances had it, i had been doing an article for a mag on a local jewish author and he put me in touch with his -- and

i drch i hadn't written one gourd. i got some sample chapters and got it to them. over the course of really five years, this editor back and forth read my entire book. so that sort of kept my going, actually. >> wonderful motivation. >> yeah. >> and naomi how did you come to your sphwhook >> well, my boork starts shortly after -- i was considered the expert at agencies who taught other therapists how to work with couples and families. then i got married after i've been doing that if a long time. it's only different on the outside. during -- very shortly after we get married we heard about this class called time for a better marriage. we took the class, was about

eight weeks. one evening a week and just a few minutes were spent on the idea of having a weekly marriage meeting. and that was what we took from the class and really, really used and consciously implemented and then one thing led to another. after a while i published an article and starting giving seminars and workshops and finally the book evolve from that. >> fantastic. i know we'll talk a little bit later about writing style. everybody has their own way of particularly written whether it's pen, paper, pen ill or on the computer. talk about how you actually came to publish your book. >> so i -- after i finished this book and i had been going back and forth with this editor. his name is chuck adams. they don't publish that type of thing. he said -- suggested you should

get an agent and that's -- one of the hardest things you can do to. they only take 1% of writers. i pitched and pitched. i sent out to 60 agents. i got a really good agent and he pitched it to all the big publishing writers. they were all writing great feedback this -- i don't know if i want to wait. i don't know how long this could take. is it ever going to happen? i was getting good feedback although they're saying they're not taking on any new people. i'm just going to self-publish it. i went on through amazon and started out as a e book and then i did it through create space a print on demand and it just got picked up by barnes and noble.

i've been gating great feedback. reading it which i was really surprised. but i think independent publishing is really changing. it seems like it's a -- much more respectable way to go than it used to be. >> how did you come to pubbish lower book? >> i met the editorial director of my publisher at a conference, national women's book association conference and she said she wanted to see see my book proposal. i had been talking with an agent who i like very much. but before either of us committed, georgia told me that they want to publish my book. >> wonderful. we're going to take a quick break. we're going to come back in just a moment here on mosaic.

welcome back to mosaic. pleased to be your host. we're in at the middle of a wonderful conversation in honor of national jewish month, nonfriction writing month. we would like to reintroduce you to naomi and debbie. we were talking about the ways in which you got published. naomi, you got published in what people might think of is an traditional way with a publisher and a publishing house. you self-publishing and by demand barnes and noble has picked up your book and that's

jsh just different ways of publishingful i wonder for anybody out there who's in the middle of the their book, what kind of words of wiz dom and encouragement you have for getting a publisher. >> i'd say maybe first try and go through the traditional route if that's what you really want but if that doesn't work out to not give up and to don't despair over there. there's o'ways. now a days it's a whole new world. they've jumped over to self- publishing and they can make more money that way. so it's -- the options are changing and to not get discouraged if at first you don't succeed. >> well, i would say the first thing to do is really write the best book that you can. you have a first draft, you have a second draft, you may have five drafts or ten drafts or even more but you want to

turn in the waste work you can. the best chance of having an agent or publish err. you can get it published. just -- concentrate on doing your job to get the best work you can and hire editors if you're going to do it independently and work well with your publisher when you get one. >> you know, i was thinking earlier that in any culture lit racy takes on many, many different form and in our particular culture, let's say the americas lit literacy in the written word. that stimulates imagination, teaches what we learn, critical thinking and i'm wondering in this world where there's so much that goes on about where content arrives whether it's on web or on the computer or in the newspaper or in literally a book that you hold. there are electronics books.

i'm just wondering from your perspective what do you think about this notion of the importance of language, the importance of writing, reading and the incorporation of language to a vital and culture. >> it's important to get people reading, especially young people. and nowadays so many young people are using the e-reader ands the e book and if they prefer to read it that way, that's fine. they're still reading. i just as long as there are many options that people can read. the importance is to get reading out there. >> naomi, how did you actually write. did you handwrite or write on the computer? how do you literally construct your book. >> i write every which way. mostly on the computer.

if i have an idea and i'm in bed i'll put out a pad and start writing that and bring it to the computer and i'll develop it in a better way. >> how did you actually write? >> i wrote mostlien the computer but also i always had an note pad with me. sometimes the idea would come in the shopping store. sometimes i'd be at the car pool. just an idea i hurried and scribbled down. >> i agree with you. >> the writing process is in some ways, very complex sometimes. somebody has a very distinct discipline and i'm wondering -- it's kind of a big question, but how do you write? >> do you wait for a moment of inspiration or sit down in your schedule and whether you feel like it or not you write for an hour? how literally do you engage yourself in the act of writing? >> well, i have a background as

a journalist. i'm used to writing on a deadline. you can't wait. that helped me because, of course, there are many times i didn't feel like writing but i had to. i made myself the deadline that i have to do so much even if i don't feel like it. i think that's just thanks to years of having to write on deadline. >> and naomi? >> well, i like knowing that somebody cares that i'm writing. it's hard for me to write if i'm in the going to get some feed back on it. i like being in writing critique groups. that was really, really important for me. i did not wait for inspiration. it's great when it comes but if i'm going to write i sit down and write and block out time in my appointment book. i'm going be writing from this time to this time. >> interesting. believe it or not we're coming to the end of our time together. we're going to welcome howard

freeman and we want it thank you debbie and naomi for spending their time with us and so much enjoying their books cooper of the sale and marriage meetings for a laosing love. thank you so much for being with us. >> my pleasure, thank you. >> we'll be right back in just a moment here on mosaic.

welcome back to mosaic. i'm rabbi eric weiss. we're joined by howard. thank you, howard. what is new at the jewish community library?

>> there's always something new because there are always books coming out but we have a lot of programs at the library. one of the programs i'm most excited about is the year-long program called one day one book and that's where we invite the community, everybody in the community to read a single book an discuss it and discuss its theme. the book we've selected for the current year is -- >> hold it up and put it here. >> new novel called the betrayers. he's a young writer and this is about a -- an israeli politician and finds himself back in ukraine where he's face- to-face with the man who had betrayed him to the kgb and the hitch is that he sort of lacks the moral hi ground that you would expect when he's confronting this man because we the readers know that this man is having an affair and

betraying his own wife and family. it's the murkiness of mortality. a lot of references to the bible and king david and sort of a hero at one level and also had a very sort of problematic moral career. >> interesting. so the betrayal on the personal, interpersonal and more communal level. >> the backdrop of history and it's intensely personal. >> so it's -- a historic nonfiction? >> it's not historic -- i mean, it takes place in history but it's a work of fiction. and it's a -- one of the interesting things is how things is draws out and one of them is to look at this history that for you and me was just part of our lives the breakup of the soviet union and the yearning for jews to get out of the soviet union and now looking back at that as history and sort of trying to find the

meaning in that. >> and so if somebody is interesting in one day, one book and this particular novel, how do they participate? >> they can actually just -- a website one day, one book.com. and they can as an institution actually join in and we are very happy to help them from -- whether they have a book group or affiliated with institution they can actually get books from us and sort of have a sponsored book discussion. our idea is really to bring the library out into the community and so that -- we can have exchanges of ideas where people are at. what's really nice is that what people have book discussions, it goes way beyond the book itself. that's what we really look is for books to stimulate meaningful discussion. >> one of the release why people join a book club is for that conversation about what they're reading in common and how -- what is the e -- shares

more personally of one's life that goes beyond the topic of the book itself. what do you think's at work there. >> the power of literature. it stimulates our thinking about our own lives and ore lives and that's the case whether the issues are ones that are really -- ones that are relevant to us personally or you may find that something isn't resinated but for us -- when we're within a group, it may be somebody else for whom that experience is powerful and for us to be able to hear and exchange ideas with that person that expands our own understanding the world around us. it's a unique experience. when you don't participate and just simplely read alone, you lack that social dimension. i've come to believe that's really important. >> a book club is a kind of

group of social interaction and community building. >> i think so. >> and so the library especially provides the scaffolding for a book club. do you literally go into the book club and facilitate the conversations or give suggestions for it? how does the architecture work? >> according to the what the group needs. sometimes we have a facilitator and we provide physical books free of charge and other times we provide resources. we prepare discuss guides for this book and a lot of other books. >> a quick break and please join us back in just a moment here on mosaic. born in joplin, missouri,

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good morning. and welcome back to mosaic. in the middle of a wonderful conversation with howard freeman. we were talking earlier about a book club that one -- one book, one day. and i'm wondering what other programs you can tell folks about at the jewish community library. >> sot library has a lot of public programs. they're all free and they're available -- anybody can attend. certainly don't have to be jewish. and one thing we try to do in our collection and in our programs is to provide lots of different inroads to the jewish experience. meaning that we focus on literature but also focus on history and music, art, film and so for example this coming thursday we'll have a program by a vizzing israeli scholar

and performer about hebrew poetry from the medieval time and primarily set -- music that really took tissue it took root in north africa and in the jewish world. doing a workshop. that'll be happening at the bring l i briar this sure. next month we'll have robert alter, the professor of -- a significant part in this novel. one of the things we like to do is to tie it into -- have programs that are related to each different themes and branches. when we have other programs and -- and that's basically what we do throughout the year. making connections between the literature and events and opportunities for people to come together around them. >> wonderful.

you know, libraries -- i think have become such a common place. as if the air we breathe. a public library or a private library, people are just used to having a library to go to or to explore and yet libraries need to buy books and they need to pay rent and they need to make decisions about the kind of folks that they employ to support readers. and i'm wondering how does the jewish community library to buy the books and newspapers for people to come in as if -- the air they breathe. >> that's tough. fortunately we're a program of jewish learning work which is a nonprofit work. we also friends of the jewish community library organization which were very dependent on and very grateful for. but the truth for is it's a real challenge. there's a perception that a

library and physical books are something of the past. basically i have a vested interest in an opposite opinion but i think that as we go dozen have sort of a contraction with bookstores shutting with video stores shutting and some libraries in -- in retreat in the stheans the role of the libraries that we do have actually is -- becomes more important. that's even more important with some -- a very sort of specific special interest library like our own because it used to be that synagogues had libraries often and it used to be jewish bookstores. there are very few today. people go to us as the central place. they can't find it elsewhere. you can find everything online and truth is that you can't. we have hundreds of films that you can't find on netflix and there's a real loss if there's not that access to those

materials. >> >> so it's a big question but what makes a book jewish? what makes a library jewish? >> for me i sort of of a maximummist -- we start in judaism from a core book, the book an we grow from that. volumes that original begin within the religious tradition but i feel that the making of books within the jewish world is all an extension of the same project which is to sort of make meaning of the world around us. for me, something where that consciousness is there doesn't nuclear weaponsly mean that any book by a jewish author is a jewish book but when we're trying to make meaning of our world then it relates to that bigger jewish project and it belongs. >> howard, thank you so much.

believe it or not we've come to the end of our time together. we leave you with this thought that literacy matters. enjoy reading. thank you so much for being with us here on mosaic. ring ring!... progresso! apology accepted. i'm watching you soup people. make it progresso or make it yourself some people think vegetables are boring. but with green giant's delicious seasonings and blends, we just may change their minds. ho ho ho

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welcome. good to have you with us. we begin with our weekly pitch. if you've got a show idea, we'd like to hear you. it's the beacon of light in one of sphrirveg's beautiful neighborhoods a place where young and old can feel a sense of family and develop their skills to live a more fruitful life. you name it the sunset neighborhood does it. and they're doing remarkable work. we're pleased to have their director with us this morning. how are you? >> good to be here. how many kids go through this on a giving day? >> during the school year we serve at over 1100 kids a da