good morning, and welcome to "mosaic." i'm rabbi eric weiss and i'm pleased to be with you here this morning on "mosaic." literacy is a vital source to any society. reading, writing and engagement with language. these are part of the foundation of building any kind of hope -- healthy culture. this month is jewish book month. it's also national nonfiction writing month and also national novel writing month. a little later in the show we're going to have howard freedman who's the librarian at the jewish community library, but in the meantime, i'd like to introduce you to two authors. debbie cohen is an author who wrote a book called "keeper of the scale." and marcia burg receiver an author -- burger wrote a book

called" marriage meetings for a lasting love." welcome debbie and marcia. shall we say naomi or marcia? >> either i go by naomi. >> so how did you each come to the idea of your respective books? debbie, how did you come to keeper of the scale? >> well, i actually have a real life diet partner. call her diet buddy. and we used to meet atal a store -- actually a store sort of similar to the scene where i set my book scene in. we talked about anything and everything but not dieting and we sort of gave up don dieting and had fun meeting and said one day i was in the store with her. and i looked around and i thought you know i have this crazy idea for a book. and from there it sort of like just took on a life of its own. and as circumstances had it i happened to be doing an article for a magazine on a local jewish author jr. what braff and he put me in touch with his

publicist. they said if you have some sample chapters i'll give it to the editor here, at algonquin publishing. and at that point i hadn't written a word. i hurried and got some chapters to them and then over the course of really five years, this editor back and forth read my entire book. so that's sort of got -- kept me going actually. >> wonderful motivation. >> yeah. >> and naomi how did you come to your book? >> my book started shortly after i got married. i was considered the expert that agencies who taught other therapists how to work with couples and families. and then i got married. after i'd been doing that far long time i got married. -- for a long time. i got married. and i realized that it's really different from the inside when you marry than from the outside when you can be objective. and during very shortly after we got married. we heard about this class called time for a better marriage and we took the class. it was about eight weeks and

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, and i after a while. i published an article about marriage meetings and i started giving seminars and workshops. and finally, the book evolved from that. >> fantastic. and i know we'll talk a little bit later about writing style, everybody sort of has their own particular way of literally writing whether it's pen, paper on the computer. but i'm wondering if you might talk a little bit debbie about how you actually came to publish your book. >> after i finished this book and i had been going back and forth with the editor. his name is chuck adams a very well-known editor. but they published that type of thing. as chick lit. he suggested arame should get

an agent and that's one of the hardest things you can do is to get an agent because they only talk about 1% of writers on. but i pitched and pitched and i think i must have sent out to like 60 sect agents and -- acts and final i -- agents and finally i got a really good agent and he pitched it to all the publishing houses. great foodback but unfortunate at that time this genre of chick lit was pretty much dead. and he was trying and trying and i thought i don't know if i want to wait. i don't know how long this could take. is it ever going to happen and at a certain point i was getting good feedback from the publishing houses although they were saying they were not taking on any for hem right now -- more people right now with chick lit. just decided so self-publish it. i just went on through amazon. and it started out asen e-book. and -- an e-book. and then i did it through create space as a pretty on demand and -- print on demand and it just got picked up barnes & noble and i've been

getting great feedback actually i'm on good reads and readers from all over the world and reading it which i was really surprised. but i think independent publishing is really changing. it seems like it's much more respectable way to go than it used to be. >> is this -- ending. i mean how did you come to publish your book? >> i met the editorial director of my publisher, new world library, at a conference. national women's book association conference in san francisco. and she said she'd like to see my book proposal when it was ready. so i sent it to her. and i had also been talking with an agent who i like very much. we've become friends. her name is katherine sands. but before either of us committed, georgia told me that they wanted to publish my book. >> wonderful. naomi, debbie we're going to come back in just a moment here after a quick break on "mosaic."

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welcome back to "mosaic." i'm rabbi eric weiss and pleased to be your host. when the middle of a wonderful conversation in honor of jewish book month. national novel writing month, and national nonfiction writing month. and so we'd like to reintroduce you to debbie cohen, author of "keeper of the scale." and marcia naomi berger, author and psychotherapist and author of "marriage meetings for a lasting love." welcome back naomi and debbie. we were talking about the ways in which you got published. naomi, you got published in what people might think of a traditional day with a publisher and publishing house and debbie you actually self- published and by demand i guess you could say, barnes & noble now picked up the book and

there's just different ways of publishing and so i wonder for anybody out there who is in the middle of writing their book, looking for a publisher, just thinking about this issue. what kind of words of wisdom and encouragement you have for getting a publisher and getting your work out there. >> well, i would say you know, 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 it. that there's -- the ways nowadays just a whole new world in publishing. and even some established publishers have even jumped over to self-publishing the they're very well-known and they can make more money that way. it's sort of like 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 to really write the best book that you can. you have a first draft or a second draft and you may have five or ten drafts or even more but you want to turn in the

best work and you do get the best chance of having an agent or a publisher. if you want to get your book published, you can get it published one way or another. so just concentrate on doing your job to get the best work you can and hire -- if you're going to do it independently, hire editors and work well with your publisher when you get one. >> you know, i was thinking earlier that in any culture, literacy takes on many, many different forms. and in our particular culture, in let's say the americas, literacy primarily is the written word. reading, writing, being engagement with the word, the ways in which that then stimulates imagination and teaches what we learn. critical thinking. and i'm wondering in this world whether there's so much that goes on where content arrives whether it's on the web or on the computer or in the newspaper, or in literally a book that you hold, there are electronic books, there are kindle books and i wonder from

your perspective now as published authors, what do you think about this notion of the importance of language? the importance of writing, reading, and engagement with language as a kind of foundation to a vital and healthy culture? >> well, i think it's just -- it's important to get people reading. and especially young people. reading and engaged no matter what the form. and nowadays, so many you know young people are using the ereaders and the e-books and if they prefer to read it that way, fine, at least they're reading or for people who prefer some older people still really just want the real book they can hold. great. i just think as long as there's many options of ways that people can read. the important thing is to read. and to get reading out there. >> and naomi, how did you actually write? did you handwrite literally? did you wry on the computer? >> i write every which way but mostly on the computer.

but i will -- if i have an idea and i'm in bed i'll pull out a pad and start writing that. and then will bring it to the computer and develop it and a better way. >> and debbie, how did you actually write? >> i wrote mostly on the computer. but also i always had a notepad with me and if i was sometimes the idea would come in the shopping store. sometimes i'd be at the carpool picking up my kids and i had just an idea i hurried and would scribble it down. and then later i'd go to the computer with it. but you have to always have to note pad. >> i abrie with you. -- agree with with you. >> the writing process is in some ways very complex sometimes. it's somebody has a very disit the discipline. i'm wondering it's kind of a big question, but how to you write? do you wait for a moment ovens ration and literally just sit down no matter what in your schedule and whether you feel like it or not you write for an hour? how literally do you engage yourself in literally the act of writing?

>> i have a background as a journalist. so i'm used to writing on deadline whether you feel like it or not. you can't really wait for the muse. i think that actually helped me because of course there were many times i didn't feel like writing but i had to. i just made myself the deadline that i have to do so much. even if i don't feel like it. and i think that's just thanks to years of having to write on deadlines. >> and naomi? >> well, i like knowing that somebody cares that i'm writing. it's hard for me to write if i'm not going to get some feedback on it. so i like being in writing critique groups. i need something ready to send by a certain date. that was really important for me. i don't wait for inspiration. it's great when it comes but if i'm going to writement i sit down and write and i will often block out time in my appointment book. i'm going to be writing from this time until this time. >> interesting. naomi and debbie, believe it or not we're coming to the end of our time together. we're going to welcome in just a moment howard freedman from

the jewish community library and in the meantime we want to thank debbie and naomi for spending their time with us and enjoying their books -- debbie and naomi, thank you so much for being with us. >> it's beenly pleasure. >> thank you -- my pleasure. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back here in just a moment on "mosaic."

welcome back to "mosaic." i'm rabbi eric weiss, and honored to be your host. we're joined now by howard freedman who's the librarian of the jewish community library

here in san francisco. welcome howard. >> thanks. thanks for having me. >> so what's 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 a year long program that we have called one day, one book. and that's where we invite the community everybody in the community, to read a single book and discuss it and discuss its themes. the book we selected for the current year is i don't know if you can see this. >> we hold it up and just put it right here. >> the new novel called "the betrayers" and it's a really interesting novel. david is originally from latvia. he's a young writer and this is about an israeli politician who was once a soviet dissident and he unexpectedly find 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 high ground that you would expect when he's confronting the man.

because we the readers know that this man is having an affair and betraying his own wife and family. and so it's really about the murkiness of morality. and makes a lot of references to the bible. to the story of king david who also was a -- you know sort of a hero at one level and also had a very sort of problematic moral career. >> and interesting. so the issue of betrayal on both the personal and interpersonal and on the more communal. >> exactly. yes. set against the backdrop of history and at the same time it is intensely personal. >> it's an historic nonfiction? >> it's not historic. i mean it takes place in history but it's a work of fiction. and it's one of the interesting things is how many themes it draws out and one of them is to look at this history that for you know, for you and me was really just part of lives being 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 somebody's interested in one day, one book in this particular novel then how do they participate? >> they can actually just go to our -- there's a website onedayonebook.com and they can as an institution actually join in. whether they have a book group or actually affiliated with an 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 so that we can have exchanges of ideas really where people are at. what's really nice is that when people have book discussions it goes way beyond the book itself. that's what we really like is for books to stimulate meaningful discussions. >> i think one of the reasons people join the book club is for the conversation about what they're reading and comment.

and how -- what is the elixir there that leads them to sharing more personally about one's life among the members of the book club that goes beyond the topic of the book itself? what do you think is at work there? >> i thinks the one of the powers of literature. is that really when we are ohm pathic with the characters in a book, it stimulates our thinking about our own lives and others' lives and that's the case whether the issues are ones that are really -- are ones that are relevanttous personally or -- to us personally or you may find that something isn't resonant but for us individually but when we're within a group, there 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 of the world around us. so i think it's -- it's a unique experience and when you don't participate, and just simply read alone you lack that kind of social dimension and

i've come to believe that that's really important. >> so in a way really the book club is a kind of crew of social interaction and community building. >> i think so. yeah. >> and so the library essentially provides the scaffolding for a book club. so do you literally go into the book clubs themselves and facilitate the conversations or do you give suggestions for it? or how does the architecture of it work from the viewpoint of the library? >> it is really according to what the book group needs. so sometimes we provide a facilitator, sometimes we have a -- what's called book club in a box program and we provide the physical books free of charge and other times we just simply provide resources. we prepare dit cushion guides for the book and for a lot of other books. >> howard a quick break and please join us back in just a moment here on "mosaic."

good morning, and welcome back to "mosaic." i'm rabbi eric weiss, we're in the middle of a wonderful conversation with howard freedman the director of the jewish communities library here in san francisco. we were talking earlier about a book club that one book, one day. and i'm wondering what other programs you can tell folks about at the jewish community library. >> so the library has a lot of public programs and they're all free and they're available i mean -- anybody can attend. certainly don't have to be jewish. and one thing we try to do as a library both in our collection and also in our programs is to provide lots of different inroads to the jewish experience. meaning that we focus on literature and also focus on history and on music, art. film. and so for example, this coming

thursday, we'll have a program by a visiting israeli scholar and performer about hee brie poetry primarily from the medieval times and primarily set to -- music that really took -- it took root in north africa and the arab world among jewish communities and they're doing a workshop. that will be happening at the library this thursday. next month related to the book that i mentioned. we'll have robert alter, the professor of hebrew literature at uc berkeley present on the psalms because the psalms also plays a significant part in this novel and one of this things we like to do is to tie it in to have programs that are related to its different themes and sort of branches. then we have other film and music programs and literary programs. and that's basically what we do throughout the year. making connections between the literature that we have on the shelves and events and opportunity for people to come

together around them. >> wonderful. you know, libraries i think have become such a common place that they are as if the air we breathe. and so whether it's a public library or a public 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 that come through the door and i'm wondering, how does the jewish community library gain its support to buy the books for its shelves and the periodicals and the newspapers for people to come in as if it's the air they breathe? >> that's tough. fortunately, we are actually a program of jewish learning works which is a nonprofit organization. so that provides some of our scaffolding. and we also have a friends of the jewish community library organization which we're very dependent on and very grateful for. but the truth is that it's a

real challenge to be a library in the 21st century. there is a perception among many people that a ply bay area and physical books are something of the past. basically i have a vested interest in an opposite opinion and i also think that as we do have sort of a contraction in many ways with bookstores shutting, with video stores shutting and some libraries in -- in retreat in a sense, that the role of the libraries that we do have actually is become -- becomes more important and that's even more important with some very sort of specific special interest library like our own. because it i don't think sod to be that synagogues had libraries often and it used to be there were jewish bookstores. there are very few today and people increasingly go us as the central place around the jewish experience. just you simply can't find elsewhere and also this sort of illusion that you can find everything online and the truth is that you can't. we have hundreds of films that you can't find on netflix.

they won't be streaming. 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 have a maximum list position that i think a very expansive one which is you know we start in judaism from a very core book. the book. in some sense. and we grow from that with commentaries and lots of volumes that originally began you know within the religious tradition. but ultimately i feel that -- that the making of books within the jewish world is all an extension of the same project. which is to sort of make meaning obviously the world afternoon -- of the world around us. for me something where that consciousness is there. it doesn't necessarily 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 the time together. we kind of put a comma in the conversation so we leave you with this thought that literacy matters. enjoy reading. thank you so much for being with us here on "mosaic." [ captions by: caption colorado, llc 800-775-7838 email: comments@captioncolorado.com ]

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