ASK ME A QUESTION:

E-mail: author at boatbastard.com

with your question,

and i'll try to answer it.

1. Is this your first book?

Do you mean published book? In fact, this is my fourth book if you count the stacks of unfinished manuscripts that eat up all my closet space.

I started my first book (I'm still searching for the right title), about an 18 year-old girl's five-year wanderings from the States to Israel and finally Japan in that late 60's and early 70's. I worked on this book for three years when I was in my late twenties, threw it out twice, and reworked it, and it still isn't right.

The second book, "MY GRANDFATHER'S BROTHER'S SON", is an excerpt from the first work, and was published in Hebrew in 1987, by Lochemei HaGataot in Israel. It's a personal story about Yonah Steiner, my "grandfather's brother's son", who was taken by the Nazis on his walk home from school in 1939 at the age of twelve, and of his survival and escapes from five concentration camps and ultimate journey to Palestine in1947. And of my journey to find him. The English version exists in paperback but is no longer in print.

FLIES IN THE JAM JAR, A Novel of South Africa, still lies in 600 unedited pages under three boxes of tax files. This is the third book that has yet to see the light.

BOAT BASTARD, a Love/Hate Memoir, is the fourth. And first US publication.

2. But I thought you are an art director in Boston?

I have to make a living. I've been working in advertising and design for twenty years. But that also includes copywriting headlines, conceptualizing campaigns, designing new imaging for corporate and individual accounts. It's creative, it's fun. And it pays the bills. I didn't know I was an authentic writer even though I've been filling up journals since I was sixteen. I just can't help myself. Even today, I still see myself as a graphic designer who writes. But don't romanticize this. Writing is enormously painful. And consuming. If I can't control the urge to write, I can disappear into the pages for years, which is a lonely habit.

3. How did you finally get published?

Ah. That's the real question. And a story in itself. I'll write about it sometime.

4. Do you always write from real life?

There's an old Hebrew proverb that says, "The best lie is the truth". My life has thrown me such unbelievable trials and triumphs that writing relieves me of the pressure of living inside a potboiler.

5. What about the BOAT BASTARD himself? What does he think of this memoir?

I have no idea.

6. What's next?

Don't raise the bar higher yet. I'm exhausted. I hope to just enjoy this product for the summer, then get back to my design work.

7. Any new books in the works?

Hopefully, when I'm really ready to disappear into writing again, I'll continue with "JEWISH IN JORDAN" about my adventures working with Queen Rania of Jordan's Jordan River Design Foundation, designing textiles and handicrafts with Palestinian refugee women. I'd like to capture the fleeting "hopeful years" immediately following the peace agreement between Israel and Jordan. The timing is right. And because the political situation today in the Middle East is a mess, this book might help explain Arabs to Israelis. Israelis to Arabs. Arabs to Jews. Jews to Arabs. The East to the West. The West to the East. (All from very personal, non-academic point of view.) I loved Jordan. I loved the Jordanian people. I had the most fascinating time in Jordan. I met extraordinary people. I brought Jordanians to Israel. And Israelis to Jordan. For a small window of time, the two sides came together in my apartment in Amman, or at my family's kibbutz by the Sea of Galilee, and learned to trust , like, and value each other as people first. The stories are filled with love and humor and will be accessible to the general reader who would otherwise get lost in the complicated morass of current events. I hope JEWISH IN JORDAN will give all readers from all persuasions a fresh and human view of the "Other Side".

8. One last question. Is your daughter okay?

In BOAT BASTARD, you left her off in a very difficult place. Remember, it's three years later. She also grew up. She's amazing. She graduated high school with honors and is now studying pre-vet medicine at Tel Aviv University. But there's still terrible trouble in the physical sense, and every day is filled with anxiety because of the explosive situation in Israel. But she won't give up. She's as determined as her mother. (You should see my phone bills).