I have participated in webinars, courses, read the https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Guide-Getting-Your-Published/dp/076116085X Still, it is daunting. what’s the problem? The brevity. I am a woman of many words, Writing the whole summary of my family saga in 250 words seems impossible. So I am editing my pitch, cutting, changing, but it seems so hard. Will any agent bite into my hook? I have never been good at fishing … Continue reading Getting the book published seems harder than writing it

The main characters are a mother and daughter. Zuzana is a pork-eating, Christmas-celebrating Jew. She escapes from Communist Czechoslovakia to England at age nineteen, officially because of politics. In fact, she is seeking asylum from her mother Magda, a formidable and unbearable Holocaust survivor. At age 12, Magda is told she can no longer attend school. Always the kid with her hand up first, and … Continue reading What is my book about?

With all my travelling, I haven’t written or edited my book since I came back from the Greek writing retreat with Women Reading Aloud, organised by Julie Maloney. I go every year. On the island of Alonissos, we write to prompts in the morning, but I still managed to work on my novel in the afternoon after I came back from the beach. So why … Continue reading Summer- seems I am on holiday from writing, and are facts important in a novel?

I never thought I will ever be affected by antisemitism. I grew up in Prague, and I don’t remember hearing any anti- Jewish jokes or comments as a child. Well, there were some, but somehow, I never connected it with antisemitism. “This is like in a Jewish school” – Czech idiom about noisy environment when everybody is talking at the same time. That is one … Continue reading “Don’t tell your children they are Jewish, there is antisemitism everywhere”, said my mum. Was she right?

So, I have seen the film Green Book, and I thought the film was fantastic. I know people like Spike Lee were saying it was just a film to make white people feel good. Well, I am white, but I am also Jewish, and, in my opinion, it was a wonderful story of two very different people learning from each other, fight their prejudices and influencing … Continue reading Green Book- is it anti-racist enough? I think so!

The other day, one of my sons commented on an article about a remarkable old lady, a Holocaust survivor. This was somebody who emigrated in 1938 to Palestine. She spent the war there, married another Jewish émigré who later joined the British army. “It is a nice article, but she is not really a Holocaust survivor, is she?” We talked about it. At first, I … Continue reading Who is a real Holocaust survivor?

  I visited my home town, Prague. In the research for my book, I met more people. One was Mrs. F., a 92-year-old mother of a friend, a very sharp lady who is in a Jewish residential home because she is in a wheelchair. Mrs F. was one of the lucky ones, she and her family emigrated in 1939. The story, like all those other … Continue reading With all the real testimonies and my own DNA testing, should I write the truth rather than fiction? Nope, I don’t think so.

Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group. The term was coined in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin. My cleaner comes from Bosnia. She got a political asylum in the UK in 1992. She was 16 years old. I knew that her father and 3 uncles were killed by the Serbs, but I never asked her … Continue reading Refugees – the same story again and again

I am writing a novel, using stories from my family, friends, and stories I make up. The real stories are fictionalised, and the most unbelievable.Real life is, indeed, stranger than fiction. The novel is partly about the previous generations, the Holocaust survivors or the lucky ones (or smart ones) who managed to escape. It is also about the ones who didn’t make it. But it is … Continue reading The reason why I am writing this novel