Jewish magazines still jockeying for market share

In the last few years, English-language Orthodox (charedi) periodicals have proliferated. (A little disclosure is appropriate here--I've written for both Aim! and Mishpacha Junior, am a long-time subscriber to HaModia.) Interestingly, as new publications show up, the older ones change formats (sometimes repeatedly) in order to improve their market share.

For example: HaModia came out with an online edition and now so has the Yated (honestly, I don't know which happened first, but I heard about HaModia's first). HaModia came out with a unique format for the kids' mag that competes more with Weekly Reader than with any other charedi publication and sets it apart. Supplements targeted towards kosher "foodies" are in vogue almost across the board. Most recently, I noticed that Binah Bunch is now divided in two--one half "Clubhouse" (which seems designed to compete with Mishpacha Junior) and one half a tween magazine (more similar to Aim!).

Watching these "renovations" is sometimes entertaining (trying to guess the reasons behind different editorial decisions, for example), but it's also a little depressing because these magazines HAVE to compete in order to make money. I enjoy all of them, but I can't afford to purchase all of them on a regular basis. Neither can the average Jewish consumer, so these magazines and newspapers have to compete for our subscriptions.

It also has implications for us writers. If there's more variety out there, there are more niches writers can develop for their writing...which is fabulous. But if everyone just tries to do the same thing, just better, (how many food magazines do we really need?) writers get locked in. I've seen a little of both in these format changes.

On a happier note, I think the competition has forced all the magazines to strive for a level of excellence that I don't think has been reached before. Not only are there more magazines, but they are better than ever, I think.

Another picture book about children's safety issues

A few weeks ago, I reported about Yoni Ploni Never Talks to Strangers, a book written about personal safety specifically for children in the Jewish community. (See the original post here.) This book is now available through the Israel Book Shop website.

Another book on this topic has just been released: Artscroll's Let's Stay Safe. This book had a wider subject area than Yoni Ploni..., as it covers such topics as crossing the street, bicycle safety, etc. as well as stranger safety. You can find Let's Stay Safe at Jewish bookstores and online on the Artscroll website.

Jewish Sci-Fi Update

Yaakov the Pirate Hunter is the new-ish novel for tweens by L.A. local Nathaniel Wyckoff. Yaakov Peretz has just started summer vacation, and an accident with one of his family's robots results in his discovery of a treasure map. Wacky adventures result from the Peretz's choice to seek out the treasure so it can be returned. It's all reminiscent of a Geronimo Stilton book, but with no mice and only black and white print.

I remember reading a while ago that the way George Lucas and Steven Spielberg invented Indiana Jones was by fantasizing about all the coolest scenes they wished had been in matinee serials and adventure novels pre-1960, and then binding these scenes together with a plot. You know: Trapped in a pit with snakes--check! Fight with strongman who gets too close to a propeller--check! Pretty but tough girl gets trapped in a basket, but which one?--check!

That's what Yaakov the Pirate Hunter is like. What would tween boys most like to read about? Robots--check! Pirates--check! Bumbling cops--check! Kids save the day--check! It makes perfect sense for this to be the novel's general impression, too. Wyckoff originally invented the story to entertain the kids in carpool (How's that for a successful carpool strategy?). With all those elements, how could it go wrong?

The recipe works like magic. Yaakov the Pirate Hunter is pure fun. My 9 year old son LOVED it. Like begged to find out if there's a sequel in the works kind of loved it. (Answer: not in the immediate future. Alas.) He also loved that the book is set in Los Angeles, not the NY metro area or Israel, like most Jewish books.

I'd recommend this book for 7-11 year old kids, especially boys. It could work as independent reading or a bedtime read-aloud. Here's a link to Amazon if you want to purchase it: http://www.amazon.com/Yaakov-Pirate-Hunter-Nathaniel-Wyckoff/dp/1456452495/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313374964&sr=1-1

There was also an outstanding sci-fi story FOR ADULTS (shocker!) in Binah Magazine's Aug. 8th issue (thanks to Miriam Hendeles for the heads-up). It was authored by the wonderful Yael Mermelstein, and it's so good, it should be anthologized or something. It would be a pity if its only appearance was in a single magazine issue.

Interesting new alternative to Facebook

Many religious Jews (and others) find the use of Facebook problematic. For ladies, there is already MetroImma and Imamother which can be used for social networking, but now there's a new alternative, available to both men and women: FaceGlat.

Apparently, it works much like Facebook, and can even be accessed through your Facebook account. There are a few differences, but the biggest is that there are separate site for men and women. No more requests to be Friended by ex-boyfriends or the guy who thought you were cute at your last job! As Facebook has been cited in a great many of divorces (according to therapists and rabbis), this is an enormous asset to FaceGlat.

Link to women's site: http://faceglat.com/woman/

Link to men's site: http://faceglat.com/man/en/faceglat.html

I'm interested to hear if anyone has tried out this new service. Feel free to share feedback in a comment below.

Busy, busy, busy

This week's Aim! magazine (found inside Ami) contains an article by yours truly on the topic of the CIA. It's actually the cover story! I had wonderful fun researching and writing it, and hope you will enjoy reading it.

I outlined a new "Part Three" for my novel, but I'm taking a breather now. Instead, I just wrote a short story yesterday. A weird short story. Revising today.

I'd also like to announce my new blog. I had to learn the Word Press platform, so I took information I've learned this summer about free and cheap local activities and started "Fabulous, Fun and Free L.A." You'll find great info for date nights, family fun, and vacations here in Los Angeles, all affordable.

Visit it here: http://funfreeorcheapla.wordpress.com/

How do we mourn?

My husband says one of the reasons we can't truly mourn the loss of the Beis HaMikdash (the Holy Temple in Jerusalem) on Tisha B'Av is because we don't understand what we are missing. We never saw the Temple with our own eyes, and the coming of Moshiach will be so miraculous, we can't even imagine it. Books can help us to better appreciate the loss of the Beis HaMikdash and picture the future end to our exile.

Leah Braunstein Levy's The Waiting Wall, Genendel Krohn's When We Left Yerushalayim, and Rabbi Fishel Schachter's Yibaneh HaMikdash, can help children identify with the gravity of Tisha B'Av and hope for the redemption. Moreover, there are a number of excellent books and DVDs (such as Chaim Shmuel Friedman's) which elaborately describe the Beis HaMikdash's appearance and function, and these can help us too.

I'd also recommend David Shapiro's The Promise of G-d, which depicts a possible scenario for the coming of Moshiach.

You could even use this as a writing exercise:

Simply sit on the floor and contemplate what will be different when Moshiach arrives, when there is no more war. Xenophobia and illness--gone! Wealth distributed fairly! The RAMBAM writes that there will no envy or competition, either. Imagine a world united to the service of G-d and happy in it. Write it down, believe in it. Then think about the gap between that future time and what we have now. Better yet, think about one thing you can do to bring that beautiful future closer.

Moving photoessay online based on book "Where Children Sleep"

This piece in the New York Times contains selections from an upcoming book about the lives of children worldwide. When I saw these pictures of children and their bedrooms, I was greatly moved. James Mollison's exquisite photos let you draw your own conclusions without any commentary, and--boy!--I drew quite a few.

For one thing, you can clearly see the variety of ways in which human beings live. Everyone knows that intellectually, but these pictures really send the message home.

The other thing that becomes immediately apparent is the material simplicity in which many of these children live. In some cases, there is obvious poverty and even oppression (the child in Appalachia, the pregnant 14 y o in Rio and the domestic worker in Katmandu). In other cases, material simplicity reflects a completely different way of seeing the world (Tvika in Beitar Ilit, the two Rendille children in Kenya and 8 y o Kraho boy from Brazil).

Here in the U.S., we see images of perfectly appointed bedrooms with matching furniture, bedding, and decor (there are some of those in Mollison's photos, too) in Pottery Barn and Ikea catalogs and long for them. We see material excess and long for it. But for the vast majority of children on earth, those perfect bedrooms are impossible to obtain. These photos even make you consider--are they worth obtaining, after all? Is the child on Park Avenue happier than the one sleeping on the bare earth in the Sahara?

Something to think about.

Also interesting is that many of these bedrooms contain no visible reading material.

Making Up New Words to Go with your New Worlds

I just finished a sci-fi novel entitled The Empress of Mars. There were many things I liked about it, and one of the things that the author, Kage Baker, managed particularly well was naming all those imaginary new technologies that appear in the story.

Almost all sci-fi stories describe hi-tech gadgets, and if those gadgets are new to your imaginary realm, you have to name them. One of the challenges is naming them in a way that evokes the item's function, but doesn't sound too similar to either real-world objects and those that inhabit other author's books. And you'd better not trample on anyone's trademark, either. Sometimes you read a book, and you're lost by the new vocabulary, or it's clunky and sounds artificial. Ms. Baker did an excellent job of naming things in ways made sense, yet seemed exotic enough to flesh out a new planet, many years in the future.

I have always been the type that makes up words. Long before Frindle, I would spout strange new words that never appeared in a dictionary or thesaurus, but which better described items or behaviors than any word that does. My specialty is turning nouns into verbs, and vice versa. However, my newest invention is "shadebathing." It is intended to describe the behavior of one of my children, who on a hot day will run into a bit of shade, plotz, and stretch out to cool off, no matter how inconvenient the time or place.

I'm blessed that one of my children has followed in my footsteps. For example, he thinks that the phrase "crime-ridden" should be replaced by the descriptor "crimey." I voiced the objection that this is too close to the word "criminy," but he remains unconcerned. "No one knows that word anymore, Ima. Or if they do, they sure don't use it."

Naming characters and locations has always been relatively easy for me. I can just make up anything, no rules. However, when you name your fictional gadget, as I mentioned above, you need to balance familiarity with novelty. I find this much tougher. In the novel I'm writing now, I keep picking names for things, then feeling the need to relabel them.

Thank G-d for "Find and Replace!" I seem to be employing it a lot lately.

Drat!

As I mentioned before, one of my objectives for the summer has been to complete a first draft of a novel. Make that my weird Jewish, sci-fi, teenage parable. So I was cruising along, having outlined and then fleshing out first part one, then part two, and then got 3000-ish words into part three...when I realized that part three didn't belong in this book! Yikes. Now I'm trying to decide just what is the real part three that belongs to this book.

I'm not entirely stuck--I've added additional materials to part one and two this week (including some borrowed from the now-defunct part three)--and have worked on another couple writing projects, to boot. However, I'm starting to fear I will not finish by Labor Day. I'm starting to fear I will never finish. (Insert image here of me imitating the little boy in the photo at the top of this post.)

I need to decide where I want to go with this book, but the idea of being stuck is giving me such anxiety that I think it's actually making me more stuck. Usually, I'm not the writer's block type...but this might be it.

I'm going to go practice some deep breathing now...