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The 23rd Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival offers FREE thought-provoking, unbridled, multilingual events. This year, readers and thinkers can take advantage of the rare opportunity to enjoy compelling authors from around the world from their favourite armchair or book nook. Explore contemporary literary conversations, panels, intervie...

Tel Aviv Art Museum

Thanks so much to Mirta Ines Trupp for hosting the April Jewish Carnival.  This month on gilagreenwrites, Gila interviews author Sharon Kirsch on her new book The Smallest Objective. According to Kirsch, the book is categorized as a memoir but it is a "hybrid of genres." After a brief hiatus, Life Is Like a Library is back with a review of Reb...

Join my zoom class begining  May 27 for five weeks of story exploration.  Who should join? This class is for anyone writing a Sephardi-Mizrahi story. Struggling with your memoir or semi-biographical work? Writing your memoir but feeling constrained by the need to stick to the truth? Then auto-fiction might be the genre you'...

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Thank you to Yael Shachar for posting this month's Jewish Book Carnival.  Some highlights, starting with my own talented visitor, Leslea Newman:  This month on gilagreenwrites, Leslea Newman shares her thoughts about poetry and promises and her new work.On her website, Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb, Deborah interviewed Molly Golubc...

Author Sharon Kirsch

BIO Sharon Kirsch is most recently the author of The Smallest Objective, released by New Star Books, Vancouver. Her earlier book, What Species of Creatures, was an imaginative telling of first encounters between early settlers to North America and unfamiliar "beasts." Reviewers described the title as "remarkable" and "unsettling." The Smallest Obje...

I like complex, flawed and vulnerable characters who struggle with moral questions and try to navigate the world with a sense of purpose, and most importantly, a sense of humor. by Author Ann Lambert I'm so pleased to welcome author Ann Lambert to gilagreenwrites. Wonderful to have a fellow Canadian here with me and I'm sure many of you will be int...

"Creatures who roam the streets of Tel Aviv catch a curious wanderer's eye during the pandemic lockdown." My colleague, the multi-talented Marc Kornblatt, has spent some time during this pandemic making fantastic short films of Tel Aviv. He shares them with me and I'm happy to share them with you. This is one of my favorites. 

I am happy to repost the February Jewish Book Carnival from the Book of Life site (see below). The Jewish Book Carnival is a monthly roundup of Jewish literary links from across the blogosphere. Sponsored by the Association of Jewish Libraries, it is hosted by a different blog each month and shares book reviews, author interviews, essays, and other...

Author Eliezer Shore visits gilagreenwrites today. He offers advice to writers about "the creation of vibrant images" in the minds of their readers. Welcome to gilagreenwrites! BIO: Eliezer Shore is a Jerusalem-based writer, teacher and storyteller. His articles and stories have appeared in publications and anthologies worldwide. His most...

When meeting a Jewish Iranian, an important question needs to be: What city did you come from? Each city has a story of its own—leaving a unique imprint on generations to follow. by Esther Amini Recently I was interviewed by Drora Arussy as part of her New Works Wednesday Series on behalf of the American Sephardi Association and Institute of J...

Thank you to Harif's Lyn Julius for inviting me to speak in conversation with author Ayelet Tsabari. "A conversation between two writers – Ayelet Tsabari and Gila Green – about their work, their Yemenite roots, Israeli identity and connections to Canada. Ayelet Tsabari's latest book is 'The Art of Leaving'. Gila Green is the author of 'White Z...

It's that time of the month again. I'm happy to share with you the January 2021 Jewish Book Carnival. This month the carnival is hosted by Heidi Slowinski. "The Jewish Book Carnival is a monthly event, bringing together those who cover Jewish literature online to 'meet, read, and comment on each other's posts'. Organized by the Association of ...

Photo: Cody Engel Unsplash

Join me on zoom in conversation with author Ayelet Tsabari. Harif, the UK Association of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa has graciously invited me to speak about my writing, my Yemenite roots, Israeli identity and connections to leaving Canada. I'm honored to be speaking with Ayelet, who I've actually had the pleasure of meeting in ...

Ronni Robinson joins gilagreenwrites today with an important post about the pandemic and overeating. I'm sure many of you will find the information valuable and please forward to anyone you think might be benefit from reading it. Bio:  Ronni is a Sandwich Generation member; she's the tired lunch meat layered between two kids in college and agi...

 ALL THINGS ANIMAL – TOP READS FROM VOICELESS I'm so excited to share that my YA eco-novel No Entry is included in the "All Things Animal--Top Reads from Voiceless." My thanks to Ondine Sherman for reading and supporting No Entry, my YA novel that takes on elephant poaching and extinction set in South Africa's Kruger National Park. Check out t...

How should you publish your work? Traditionally? Self-publishing? This is in the top five questions writers ask me on a monthly basis. So, thanks so much to the wonderful Jane Friedman for this detailed post on the many options authors have today to publish their work. I have traditionally published since 2013 and, after four novel publication...

Today, I'm so pleased to welcome fellow Canadian Karen Schauber to gilagreenwrites. If I would have known Karen one year ago, I would definitely have met up with her last year in Vancouver to talk flash fiction, something I taught online for a decade.  As it turns out, I met her virtually only after my trip to participate in&nbs...

Looking for a roundup of what's in store for 2021 in these categories? New traditional publishing imprints (Big Five) Beyond the Big FiveChildren's and YAComics and graphic novelsNew publishersNew literary agencies and agentsNew agenciesNew agentsDigital media ventures If the answer is yes, this is the article worth reading and filing for refe...

 The Poetic Justice of Grief "You're already writing about your mother?" "It took me years to be able to write about my father." "Don't you need time to grieve?" "Wasn't it incredibly difficult to write about your parents so soon after they died?" These are the kinds of comments I received from people who couldn't believe I picked up my pen im...

Please welcome author Dr. Suzie Lowinger to gilagreenwrites. I'm delighted to have a former class participant as part of my site and I'm always happy to promote more English-speaking writers in Israel. Suzie shares her insights into character and character development and how our own creations can not only surprise us, but have something to teach u...

The two faces of autofiction

Since July 2020, I've been teaching autofiction online (and now on zoom) and I've already received enough feedback to share with you not only my number one question, but the number one stumbling block at the beginning of each class. So at the risk of sounding redundant (yes, I answered this question back in June, but that was pre-teaching...

I'm thrilled to repost NPR's Hanukkah Lights Stories of the Season for your perusal and enjoyment.   From their website: "Hanukkah is a time to share light, miracles and faith. It's been a difficult year and these stories will reflect that. They're darker than usual. But we hope the miracle of Hanukkah casts its light through these storie...

It is my pleasure to repost this month's Jewish Book Carnival from The Rachack Review and I'm so happy to have spent time with author Leah Kirshenberg who is a children's author, an educator, as well as an author of several educational books about language acquisition.    The Rachack Review is proud to serve as the December 2020 host...

 I'm delighted to share my Hanukkah podcast with you. It was, as usual, an honor to chat with Dave Pezza from NovelClass. We shmooze about the holidays, my Hanukkah-themed very short story "Roller Coaster"  from my White Zion novel-in-stories (Cervena Barva Press, 2019). We get into parenting teenagers, what Hanuk...

I am delighted to share with you my recent podcast with Galit Gottlieb on the New Books Network. Galit is the Chicago-based author of the Whipped and Sipped Mystery series and a host for New Books in Literature, a podcast of the New Books Network.  I'm so thankful for the opportunity to discuss my work with such a wonderful reader and lis...

I am so pleased to have been invited by Harif  to speak with talented author Ayelet Tsabari, (The Art of Leaving). I am a fan of Ayelet's work and honored to be in conversation with her to kick off 2021. Our talk will be moderated by author Lyn Julius, co-founder of Harif, the UK Association of Jews from the Middle East and Nort...

Register here. 

I'm so excited to be part of the first Hannukkah Podcast with NovelClass's Dave Pezza. Join us on Tuesday December 8. Time TBA.   We will be discussing short Hannukkah Jewish Fiction including my own Flash piece "Roller Coaster" published in Jewish Fiction. This is the third time I'll be podcasting with Dave and I'm so thrilled to be join...

 I'm so excited to be part of New Works Wednesdays. Join me 27 January 2021 to discuss White Zion.  Register here. I'm happy to answer any questions in advance. Thank you to the Institute of Jewish Experience for the invitation.