Coming Fall 2019: Disengagement

Okay guys, so I have some very exciting, long-in-coming news: my next novel, Disengagement, is scheduled for publication by Kasva Press in November 2019.

Disengagement is the story of the birth, life, and death of a fictional Jewish settlement in Gaza, as told through the interwoven perspectives of the radically different people–from settler to soldier to journalist to Palestinian neighbor–whose lives were touched by its evacuation during the disengagement from Gaza in 2005. (If you’ve been following for a while, you may recall my mentioning it as a short story collection a little over a year ago. Well, it evolved!)

Those of you who have been following my agent-search misadventures on the Rejection Survival Guide will know that I dipped my toes into querying again to see if I could interest a literary agent in this project. As per usual I got close, but not as per usual, I had a fairly attractive alternative: the good folks at Kasva Press were enthusiastic about the project and eager to publish it. Though they’re unlikely to launch my books to the sort of fame and glory a literary agent and major publisher theoretically (but not necessarily) could–I enjoyed working with them very much, and there are some serious perks to working with a small, family-owned, independent press. A major publisher would never give me nearly as much personal attention, input on the process, or control over the final product. So after a relatively light round of querying, I decided to move forward with Kasva.

While I will always love and cherish By Light of Hidden Candles, Disengagement is… a different level from a literary standpoint. I can’t wait to share it with you all so you can see what I mean.

In the meantime, you can get a sneak peak next month: THEMA Literary Journal will be publishing a version of one of the stories that appears in the book in the New Neighbors issue. I’ll keep you posted on that.

By the way, less exciting, but still exciting: arc-26, the latest issue of the literary journal produced by the Israeli Association of Writers in English, was recently published. The theme of the issue is “Love in a Time of Conflict,” and it contains two short, dark-humorous poems by yours truly: Before the Next War and Things I Ignore at my Kid’s Birthday Party. A launch event in Tel Aviv was recently announced–I’m not sure I’ll make it to that one, but I’m told there will be a Jerusalem event as well, and I’ll definitely be at that one!

Between all this and the re-release of Letters to Josep in a couple months, 2019 is shaping up to be a productive year!