Many months ago, Michelle Cohen-Corasanti enrolled in one of my Writer’s Digest creative writing courses on story beginnings. The novel she worked on in class was The Almond Tree. It was clear immediately that this was a writer of uncommon talent and promise. The problem—for me—was her subject material. She was writing what seemed to […]

 Through the Gotham Writers’ Workshop,  I was assigned the successful and extremely talented novelist Marcy Dermansky to be my writing coach.  I was leery when I found out that Marcy was Jewish. All the Jews I knew had the Berlin Wall mentality. I knew my novel was pro-peace, but I wasn’t sure she’d see it […]

 My intention was to write a book about an Israeli and a Palestinian who rise above religion, race and politics and together achieve greatness. Somewhere along the way, the story began to take on a life of its own and all I could do was to go with it. Nora’s role shrunk and Abbas’ grew. […]