Unexpected Encounters

It was in May this year that I felt prompted to order a book that was mentioned on a flyer that I had already for over a year in a research file: “Letters from Jerusalem 1947-1948”.
However, the lady, Zipporah Porath, wrote back that as I lived in Jerusalem, I could get the book through someone living not too far from us. Also, she wanted to know why I was interested in MACHAL.

An intensive email correspondence began, and I it just ‘clicked’ between Zippy and me, who is more than 30 years my senior. One thing led to another and I ended up creating brochures from two of the Jerusalem Letters, translating them into Dutch, and finding myself revived in returning to ‘active’ life.

You’ll find more about this special lady on my Website – I’ve created a special Zippy’s page, because the story of this eye-witness to Israel’s birth, must never be forgotten!

On the FOR THE LOVE OF HISTORY blog you’ll find two articles about MACHAL, which I wrote for Front Page Jerusalem Radio.

You can also listen to it: (a very revised version of what I wrote)
log into: http://www.frontpagejerusalem.com/site/index.php
Go to FPJ archives: this day in Israel’s history – machalnix

Speaking about Serendipities

Last year I did research for a radio article about Israel’s struggle for Independence, and stumbled upon “Machal” – overseas volunteers who fought in Israel’s War of Independence.

Reading about those wonderful people whose WWII experience was such an important asset in all areas of Israel’s survival, something ‘clicked’ inside of me. I longed to know more about those people. I wanted to write a novel about them.

But in order to give the characters enough back story, I had to go back to 1938, and that’s where the series starts. The Machal part will probably only introduced in part three ~ a long way to go yet.

You can read the text of the radio article about Machal on the “For the Love of History” blog. Even though the Machal novel is still a long way ahead of me, I'm constantly on the look-out for interesting information, that is added to the ever growing Machal file.
Lately, the Jerusalem Post published several articles from Zipporah Porath, excerpts from her book. Since last year, I kept a printout of the flyer on file, thinking that I would order the book when the time came to dig deeper into research.
But this week I felt I should order Zipporah Porath’s book “Letters from Jerusalem” now.
Thus, I send her an e-mail, and a wonderful correspondence began. She linked me up with a friend who happened to live very close to us, from whom I obtained the book.

Many ideas to help Zipporah find an audience to share her first-hand experiences have sprung up, and I’m excited to with the prospect of so many possibilities. More info about her book will be posted on my website, on the book review page.

It’s so amazing how God leads!

An Encouraging Rejection

After I sent out the Dutch manuscript to several Dutch publishers, a few of them responded rather quickly. One wrote they didn’t have fiction in their fund, another they couldn’t use the story, and the last one was another rejection, albeit an encouraging one.
This is what they wrote:
"Several of our editors have reviewed your MS and all agree that your MS is of good quality. We enjoyed reading it and are sure there is a market for it. However, we had to reject your MS because we don't carry this genre in our fund."

They further wrote they hoped another publisher would accept the MS, and even gave me another Publisher's name they knew carried my genre in their funding. (That one already wrote me they couldn't use it.) Now I'm waiting for the last two (big Dutch publishers) to respond. On the English front: This month I expect the result for the Rose and Crown (Sunpenny) Novel competition. I sent them 2 manuscripts.

I shared the news with Mary Rosenblum, Web editor of LongRidge’s e-newsletter, and she commented as follows:

"Ah, aren’t those near misses frustrating, Petra? But it means you’re close. And she is also working on other projects. Petra, you are a busy writer! Way to go, girl!"