January 7, 2016
Happy New Year! Faith Ed. has now been out in the world for five months, and it’s been fascinating to speak to audiences of many faiths at churches, temples, bookstores, universities, and other venues. Many more events are in store for 2016. I’ll highlight just a few in today’s newsletter.
Florida-Bound: My Tampa event has been postponed, but I will be speaking Sunday, Jan. 17 at 4 p.m. at Books & Books, a Miami book store. Please come if you’re in the Miami area and let Florida friends and family know.
Back Home in the Boston Area: I’ll give a talk on Feb. 11 at 8 p.m. at Temple Emanuel, 385 Ward St., in Newton.
Teaching v. Celebrating Holidays in Schools: USA Today recently ran an op-ed I wrote about how teachers can teach about Christmas, Hanukkah, and other holidays legally without ‘celebrating’ them. It stirred quite the comment thread, and many readers were pining for ways of the past. See my USA Today op-ed here.
Muse 2016: In other news, I’m pleased to report that I will be a presenter for the first time this year at Grub Street’s annual conference, Muse & the Marketplace, in Boston. I will be co-presenting a panel with Lissa Warren, an editor at Da Capo Press, about the pros and cons of publishing without an agent. The Muse is a terrific conference for writers at all levels.
Thanks as always for reading! I hope everyone had a nice vacation if they took one the last few weeks. My family spent some time in Vermont. Yes, we saw Star Wars. I came of age in the ’80s and admit that I’m a huge Star Wars fan. This has nothing to do with teaching about religion, but seeing the movie was a terrific way to escape after a very intense, yet wonderful 2015.
We saw Star Wars in a quirky theater in Springfield, Vt., which boasts of having its own Star Wars museum. Its collection includes a life-sized, homemade Darth Vader and a Christmas tree decorated with one of my favorite characters, the oh-so-wise Yoda.
