Has all sorts of different programs that encourage people to read, to enjoy the imagination of writing and the relationship between reader and a book and a writer. What how do you see this issue a world of ever deepening technology . Thats a good question. You know, your first words sort of touched me. Theres a book that came out last year by the israeli novelist called jews in words and they have a memorable sentence about jews that ours is not a bloodline, but a text line, and they sort of locate at the center of the jewish experience the passing on of the word of text. And so we see ourselves at the library very much in that tradition, and i see basically that encounter whether its through a written book or whether online or through an e book, what were doing fundamentally is interacting with text very much in that tradition within judaism of reading the torah. In synagogue of sitting around the table, at asover passover with a book in our hands and for me reading a novel is a continuation of that experience. When you talk about one of the things for me that deepens that experience is not only reading but communicating with each other about it, and thats one of the reasons that im a big booster of book clubs. At the library we really try to encourage participation in book groups. How do you construct a book club at the library . We have an ongoing drop in book club but whats wonderful for the most part we dont have to create much. Lost many informal book groups whether i filluated with an institution a affiliated with an institution. We offer free sets of books to those groups to borrow, and also we have a new program called one bay one book in which we are encouraging all book groups in the bay area should they be interested in exploring a single book this year. So michael, as an artist, as a writer, as a novelist, just to sort of ask a big basic question, why do we write. Why do we read. Why do we read, why do we write . That is big question. Ive grown up of course with words. Theres always in my home, books were always there. I cant even imagine life without reading. Of course its just a form of selfexpression obviously. For writers its a funny thing because, you know, everybody wants to express themselves, but actually writing a book is a huge job. Its a job of discipline. You have to sit down every day, and you have to work every day as if you were going to the office, and yet, there is something so fundamentally real and pure about what youre doing and bringing something out of yourself, and you also bring to bear everything youve ever read. Everything youve ever learned. Everything youve ever done actually into every sentence that you write. Its an extremely powerful thing. You were talking about book clubs, and i do love book clubs actually. I like doing this them. I do them all over the country, and actually, im a one book for pennsylvania through philadelphia. Theres 10,000 people who are going to be reading my book at the same time, and to me thats mind boggling. I mean what more could you want as a writer. So your book is called the wanting. Yeah and its just recently been published. So what shall you say that will leave us unsatisfied to the point of wanting to go out and get the book . You mean you want to know what its about . Yeah. Ill just do the opening for you. Hows that. This is how it starts. Theres a russian immigrant living in israel. His an architect, and hes sitting in his office in front of this big plate glass window that he loves someplace in israel, and a bomb explodes outside of his office shattering the glass. The glass is about to fall upon him and kill him. Just then the head of the bomber goes floating across the window. He flinches just enough to be saved from the falling glass, so hes saved actually by the person whose intent it is to kill him. So what happens is its not only his window that shatters but his whole life. He starts remembering his life in moscow and we see that and he goes on a journey in the west bank to find the parents of the person who blew himself up for some sort of closure, and at the same time its the story of this young man who blew himself up, who is now sort of this disembodied presence trying to figure out why he cant get into paradise. Wow. Thats only part of it. Were going to take a quick break just in time for folks to go to their computer and order the book and come back here and join us on mosaic in just one moment. Good morning and welcome back to mosaic. Im rabbi eric rice. Were in a wonderful conversation about communication, about language, about books in honor of november as jewish book month. Were joined by Michael Levine whos the novelist of a book called the wanting. We were talking elier howard about the book clubs and the nature of them, and im wondering how you think about the relationship between a reader and a books a someone who lives among the stacks of books and you have people coming in all the time to get books to read, to enjoy. Yeah, i think its interesting. I mean at one level its a very intimate experience. I think for those of us who read a lot, theres this relationship thats very sort of a personal relationship of the reader and the book. Then you mention book clubs and its the opposite. Its a communal experience, and i increasingly really value that communal experience. Theres a tradition within judaism of actually studying our texts in partnership with others. Theres a line from the book of proverbs that says as iron sharpens iron so does another does one person sharpen another, and theres really a quality when we look at a text together and come to a different perspective. I think, you know, michaels book is a really good example. I love this book, but i read it myself. If you read it yourself and i read it myself we would each come to our own perspective if we then discuss it had afterwards, id be looking through your eyes and coming to some conclusion that i wouldnt have arrived at myself. I agree with that. In fact, i did a book group on this particular book on the wanting, which is you know, my second book, and what i did is i decided i would teach the book as if i hadnt written it. So i just started asking questions about like you would in a class, well, what themes do you see in the book, and i learned an enormous amount about my own work. It was astounding what different people bring to the bring to the table. Once you write a book, its out there. You have no control over it at all, and its enriching, i think, to do these things together without denigrating the idea of this singular experience that you have, you know, sitting in bed. My wife, gail was reading jennifer lauries new book and she was crying through the entire book. Whats the name of the book . I cant remember the name. Do you remember it . So i havent read it yet, but that experience that she had is one kind of wonderful experience. Now when she does that book in her book group it will be a completely different thing. And michael as a writer, i know theres so many things that any artist thinks of in their own personal process for the execution of their craft, but im wondering do you yourself as a writer think of the reader while youre writing . Do you have some assumptions about the reader while youre writing or does that not thats a great question, actually. A creative process. Because you do. Once you have an audience, theyre there, and you are thinking about them. Youre thinking will they understand this or will they not understand this, but theres Something Else at play is that you have to decide at some point as a writer to trust your audience and not talk down to them but allow them into the into your experience as a writer. So its a balancing act. You want everyone to follow what youre doing, but at the same time you want to be able to challenge them with what youre doing. Do you agree with that . Absolutely. Im just curious to know, believe it or not we have to end in just a moment, in your own writing style, do you write as if you are speaking and telling a story orally, or is it more of an intellectual cognitive experience of how you construct the sentence and choose words on a piece of paper . Its both actually. Its both. For me when im writing, i am completely involved in my characters. I am them, and i actually see whats happened. I see it, visually see it, hear it in the millisecond before im typing it. Its like a play for me. Before its on the page its in my mind. Fascinating. So were going to encourage people to engage with book clubs and otherwise come to the Jewish Community library. I just want to plug the library. Its a great, great place. And were also going to encourage folks to look for your book, the wanting. Michael levine. Believe it or not were going to take another break, were going to say goodbye to michael and howard and welcome two other authors here in just a moment here on mosaic. Good morning and welcome back to mosaic. Were in the middle of a wonderful conversation in honor of november as jewish book month about writing and reading and the nature of communication in todays world. The Jewish CommunityLibrary Book Club this year is called one bay one book. Thats the name of the program for the year, and the book that they are going to be reading and discussing for the entire year is a book called a guide for the perplexed by dara horn, and its part of the one bay one book club with the Jewish Community library here in san fransisco. Were joined now by Jason Cay Friedman who is a short story writer whose book is just now published. Its called fire year and by joan the poetry editor for the j, our local weekly newspaper and two of her poetry books are a dreamers guide to cities and streams as well as. Here and abroad. Its short fiction. Welcome joan and jason. So youre writers. Youre artists. You utilize your imagination in this way. Youre a poet, youre a short story writer and also a writer of fiction. Im just curious to know what is the difference you think between writing poetry and writing short stories . I dont write poetry, but i admire poets so much. I mean, this sounds flip, but i actually mean this quite sincerely. I think that a person who writes novels or short stories is maybe a person who cant be cant say it in as short a space as a poet. I think the poetry has come out as a distillation of what we want toessay but cant say. I have huge admiration for poets. Lovely. The one thing that you know its better time. You can write a poem in much less time than a story or a novel, but people really dont realize that good poems are revised over and over and over, and when a poet has a collection come out, even though it may only be 78 pages instead of 780 pages, those pages have been worked and reworked. Its a labor of love is what it is, and its hard work. And just to ask a very basic question because i know a lot of people out there sort of think about this certainly there are other writers listening to us talk and people who are readers and just admire that and enjoy it, why why do you write . Should i start . Sure. You know, i thought about that question, and you know, when you start to write, i started to write very young, started to write when i was in my teens. You write because you get encouraged. You put a toe in the water and you say heres a poem and you present it to someone, and theyre touched, and you go, oh, well thats interesting, and so you write again, and then you do a reading, and people come up to you and say that they cried, and then you go, oh, well, thats interesting. So you know, i went for my masters, and you know my teachers encouraged me. Oh, this piece could be a film. You get that kind of support, and thats really what keeps you going, especially over years. And jason . I write to understand something. So i mean the classic example would be something thats bothering me. I think this is why people write songs and its just its an urge to write something thats to understand whats bothering you, but i also tried to understand things that arent immediately bothering me. Ive taught creative writing, and i always tell my students, you know, write what you want to know, which is sort of a little variation of the classic thing write what you do know. If its something that i want to know, thats a drive to understand, its going to be reflected in the drive of the story write, its going to be the narrative impulse to understand something. I write about things that i really dont have immediate knowledge of at all. So theres things i want to know about. Thats a wonderful segue. Can i says something about political poetry . Because we talk a lot in the community about political poetry, and theres a brilliant essay by steven dunn whos a Pulitzer Prize winning poet. He says you can write political poetry but unless you dont know what the ending is its not going to work. Same thing. There has to be an element of surprise that if you sit down and you know where youre going and what you want to say, so its going to come out die tactic and really beautiful tie in to that. I agree completely. Not talking just about political writing but just sort of knowing what the ending is. We all all writers have the experience of people saying, that makes such a great story so sometimes one is tempted to write that great story, but you already know the end offing of that story. It doesnt make that great story. You know how its going to end. Its a joke. To have the sort of basic idea of where im going without knowing how its going to end up, being surprised thats like the most wonderful feeling. The most wonderful feeling for me when im writing is when i get to the point where i realize i dont have to go any farther, and when that moment takes you by surprise thats the best like, wow i can stop. Were going to stop really quickly actually and take a break and were going to show your books on the screen as we go to break. And please come back in just a moment here on mosaic. Welcome back to mosaic. Honored to be your host. Were talking with joan dilsand and jason k. Friedman about writing and their books. Welcome back joan and jason. You know, it occurred to me that just to make a general statement, most people begin writing by writing in a diary or maybe they get an essay assignment from their school and that in some ways i wonder if writing at a certain point makes a shift and essentially a book or a book of poetry ends up being Something Like a public diary that then is kind of given to the world. The diary is typically thought of something that is kept secret for one selfbut once you show something and get encouragement then you actually move into a little bit of a public sphere, and im just wondering sort of what you think of that for your own particular writing process or as you developed as a writer . Does that ring a bell in any way to you . It really does. Yeah. One thing that we learned when were in writers groups or msa programs or wherever we learn how to be professional writers is there is writing thats private, and thats the diary writing that is heeling and that is important, and that helps people to know themselves, but when you put your work under out in public, you start to want to have some universality. There has to be some epiphany, some truth moment thats bigger than your own personal experience, yeah. So only because we have just a little bit of time left, lets joan, talk about your couple of books. Well have jason talk about his recently new published book so we have people hear a little bit about them, and dont tell us too much. Just tell us enough to make us want to go get them. Oh, yeah my new book is called fire year. Its a book of short stories. It won a prize, the Mary Mccarthy prize, and the prize was this publication. Its stories that are inspired by my growing up in southern Jewish Community in savannah, so characters and stories that i have not experienced directly but that i have kind of known or groan up with or grown up with or heard. I think probably asking a writer what his book about is probably not my publisher calls them outsiders teams. Its about characters who have a complicated relationship with their communities they come from, whether its the Jewish Community or Southern Community or gay community. But to me its, you know, the subject matter is pretty varied. I have a couple of stories about conmen. I have a story about solving an art mystery and a couple more kind of coming of age type stories. Called fire year. Yeah. And joan, just a couple of sentences. A dreamers guide to cities and streams. There are theres a section on environmental poetry. My urge to talk about whats happening to our earth. Theres a section on what its like to live in the city and also be a nature person, and theres a lot of poems about san fransisco. Wonderful. Yeah. We have just one minute left, so im going to and each of you a different question. Just a quick one word answer to a really big question. So michael, excuse me, and jason, we had michael in the first two segments. Jason, i know who you are. Your book is wonderful, fire year, so in a world that is in so need of broken, what heals . Listening. Yeah. And what would be one thing you would change in the world, joan, if you could . Political infighting. Okay. So please go to a bookstore, buy a book, get on the computer, buy a book, go to your local library, take a book out, enjoy your reading and if you write keep on writing. Thank you so much for joining us here on mosaic. [ male announcer ] pillsbury grands biscuits. Add some beef, sloppy joe sauce and cheese, fold it all up and boom delicious unsloppy joes perfect for a school night. Pillsbury grands biscuits. Make dinner pop. [ hans ] toaster strudel [ angelic music plays ] dont overthink it. [ hans ] warm, flakey, gooey. Toaster strudel again, welcome to bay sunday im your host frank malica. If youve got a show idea wed love to hear from you. Go to kpix. Com, scroll down to bay sunday and hopefully we can hook up. We are going to the zoo today, tucked up in the hills of oakland as a world class zoo. Maybe the east bays best kept secret and there are all kinds of things going on as we head into the holidays including their condor in the big surf. Welcome nancy phillipe, and kelly sorenson. How are you . Nice to see you. Great to have you here. Nancy, lets start with you. For those that dont know where the zoo is, tell us where it is and tell us about