Anita Diament

Since 1985, I have written about contemporary Jewish practice and the Jewish community.

Shakespeare in Love… such smart writing of an alternative view of history, and such beautiful acting. Like most Americans, I’m a sucker for the accent.

Until very recently men and women inhabited very separate spheres. There was always interconnection, passion, love. But men and women didn’t hang out at the end of the day and chat about what their day was like at the office.

The Bible – it’s sort of the other person in the room. There’s this book, the reader, and the Bible.

Biblical names are hot again.

One of my favorite poets, Neruda, writes close to the bone. Though I know only a little Spanish, I like to compare the Spanish and English lines and see how the translator worked.

As a journalist I’m comfortable doing library research, and I did a lot! I had a fellowship at Radcliff for a year which gave me access to the Harvard system.

My six handbooks to Jewish life and lifecycle events mostly followed the trajectory of my adult Jewish life.

There’s something almost adolescent about Whitman’s paean to everything that was and remains good about America.

Whatever your relationship is to your sacred tradition in the West, you have some relationship to the Bible if only through the names of the characters.

My early childhood was spent in Newark, New Jersey, but my family moved to Denver when I was 12.

I love many kinds of music: world music, jazz, classical, pop.

The real Mary Poppins got lost when Hollywood turned her into a cream puff.

I lived through a classic publishing story. My editor was fired a month before the book came out. The editor who took it over already had a full plate. It was never advertised. We didn’t get reviewed in any major outlets.

I got nice rejections explaining that historical fiction was a difficult sell. But I kept trying.

I tell writers to keep reading, reading, reading. Read widely and deeply. And I tell them not to give up even after getting rejection letters. And only write what you love.

Right now, I’m Writing song lyrics. Experimenting with a play. Toying with an idea for a documentary. I hope one of these will eventually be launched into the light of day.

I never wanted Mary Poppins to be my nanny. I wanted to be her when I grew up.

My husband, Jim, converted to Judaism just before our wedding.

The Sabbath is a weekly cathedral raised up in my dining room, in my family, in my heart.

The more I do bookstores, the more people come up to me from church groups. I spoke at Pittsburg State College and had 2 or 3 ministers and book groups from a couple of churches.

November is Jewish book month, so Jewish Community Centers all around the country have book fairs where they invite authors and sell books in advance of the holidays.

I have a 10-year track record of writing for the Jewish community.