I've written a book - it's a miracle! by Keren David

 Rather to my surprise I have a new book out today. 

I say 'rather to my surprise' because I feel as though I haven't done any creative writing for ages, what with cork and Covid, and Mum getting ill and then dying (March 2022) and then looking after Dad,  who then got ill and died March 2024.  If people ask 'What are you writing?' I shrug and eyeroll  and say 'Nothing, except work,' meaning the day job which involves writing quite a bit, but all of it bite-sized journalism. Sometimes I go on at length about how burned out I feel, sometimes I say rather vaguely that perhaps I'll try something different next time, but mostly I just say 'Life got in the way,' and people understand. 

However. At some point in the nightmare years my agent asked if I fancied writing an early reader, and if I could think of a 'Jewish story' for one. So I thought of a contemporary Jewish story which linked the then relatively unknown (but important) festival of Succot (now much better known for tragic reasons) with homelessness (temporary housing being an important theme of said festival). But then it turned out that the commissioning editor wanted a 'traditional or religious tale' and suggested one about 'the heroine of Chanukah'. Chanukah is often the Jewish festival that non-Jews have heard about because it falls roughly adjacent to Christmas, but it's a relatively minor one. Also, there is no heroine attached to the story of Chanukah (some people link the biblical story of Judith to Chanukah, but it's a vague link, and I wasn't that keen on writing a story for 8 year olds about heads being chopped off.  So instead I suggested a book about the (almost) heroine of the Exodus -  Miriam, sister of Moses.

It turned out that when you are feeling creatively burned out, writing a short adaptation of something that already exists is a great and gentle way to feel like a writer again. It's not like writing your own story, it's got quite a bit in common with journalism, but I enjoyed combing through the bible (I highly recommend Robert Alter's translation of the Hebrew bible), and writing it  with Miriam at the centre of the story. It was a new way to think about something very familiar, and I found it fun, satisfying and illuminating.

Then -  somewhat to my surprise -  I was asked to brief the illustrator. Luckily I had a strong idea in my head about the way people looked in those days, thanks to a book I was given as a very small child. The Exodus story is told every year at the festival of Pesach (Passover) and everyone has their own book -  a Haggadah. My Haggadah is illustrated with archaeological pictures, wall carvings and paintings from Egypt, so I took lots of pictures from it, and sent them off to Roy Hermelin, the illustrator, who used them as the basis for gorgeous pictures.

The next bit  -  again, surprising me  - involved working out exactly how the text would fit over the page template, and giving exact details of the illustrations on each page. It was like doing a fiendishly difficult puzzle, but we got there in the end. And then a couple of spreads about Jews and Judaism. 

All this (I only know by looking back at emails) was going on through 2023, while I worked, and sold Dad's house and moved him into care, then spent a month visiting him in hospital... and then... Which might explain why I sort of forgot about it. But it's out tomorrow! And while it's a story stuffed full of miracles -  signs and wonders, in the words of the Haggadah - my own little miracle is that I was able to write a book in these difficult years.