The Almond Tree Turkish edition cover
Guillermo Fesser reviews The Almond Tree on The Huffington Post – ENGLISH VERSION
Americans in Palestinian Shoes. Two weeks ago Obama arrived in Jerusalem and shared, before a packed auditorium of university students, a concern that no president in the White House has dared to publicly mention before: “The Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and justice must be recognized. Put yourself in their shoes – look at the world through […]
The Almond Tree Book Launch Party
Last night The Almond Tree book launch party was held at New York City’s Casa la Femme restaurant in the West Village. We thank everyone who participated and are happy to share with you some of the evening’s best photos. (Photography by Moises de Pena)
Thank You For Attending The Booksigning
We want to say a big Thank You to everyone who came out to attend the book signing event at Barnes & Noble in New Hartford, CT on the 17th. It was a wonderful night and we had such great turnout that Michelle kept signing books well past the scheduled cutoff time. Here are some […]
How does a non-writer write a story?
Well, I told myself, if a medical doctor could write The Kite Runner, then surely you could write a novel as well. After all, weren’t lawyers trained to write? I knew I had the seed for a story, but that was all. I decided that I would completely fictionalize the story. I chose to write […]
Why would a Jewish-American woman choose to write in the voice of a Palestinian Muslim male?
I began to write my story in first person in the voice of Ichmad because it felt natural. Yes, I know that it is somewhat strange that a Jewish American woman felt most comfortable writing in the voice of a Palestinian Muslim. Believe it or not, out of all the characters I created, I felt […]
How did I choose the beginning?
When I initially wrote the novel, I began with Ichmad on a bus to visit his father in prison. Ichmad had already helped the refugee bury arms and he was on his way to confess his crime to his father. During one of the writing courses I took, another student asked why should he sympathize […]
What did Les Edgerton, my editor, have to say about my book?
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 […]
Was Les your only editor with possibly preconceived views on the Israeli-Palestinian situation?
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 […]
Why are some reviewers describing your novel as the story about two brothers?
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. […]