On our recent trip to Boston, we visited Plimouth Plantation. As often happens when traveling, you go out to see one thing and discover another. Plimouth Plantation hadn't been the [...]
The destruction of the synagogue in Reichenberg (Liberec), November 9-10, 1938 Last year I wrote about Remembering Kristallnacht in Liberec, which is featured in my book Jumping Over Shadows. [...]
A new student asked me to explain the difference between creative nonfiction and memoir, and so I thought I'd clarify this here today. If one person asks, I figure, more [...]
"...when [you] remember feeling joyfully bound to the whole earth or even universe -- [those moments] are most likely to be associated with being alone, and often alone outside." found [...]
Postcard carousel in the colonnade at Mariánské Lázně, Czech Republic (September 2016) Whenever I travel, I send postcards to my brother and sister. They do the same. This [...]
One evening last summer, my brother and I lingered by the camp fire after the rest of the family had gone to bed. As the flames died down, we looked [...]
Yesterday I went for a walk around Promontory Point for the first time since my surgery, and I realized: a place can help restore our sense of self. Three months [...]
This is the time of year when I used to go apple picking with my kids. Alas, they've all flown the nest, and the one day my daughter and I [...]
I always knit when I'm on a plane, or crochet. In fact, if I have a flight coming up, and I don't have a knitting project going, I frantically cast [...]
Nine weeks out from my hip surgery, I wish I could say I've learned to pace myself. My recovery seems to be largely about taking it slowly, treating myself gently [...]
Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, is around the corner, and so I thought this is a good time to share a few photos from my visit to the Vilna [...]
I just reread a book I had read in 2012 when it first came out: Susannah Conway's This I Know. It is one of the few books I've gifted several [...]
At book events, I'm often asked how I came up with my book's title, Jumping Over Shadows (see that story here: How to Come Up with a Book Title). Recently, however, [...]
I have blogged before about the special magic of handwritten letters and postcards. But now that I am recovering from hip surgery and have been largely housebound, I discovered just how [...]
Turns out my one day of pure R&R this summer was spent crossing Lake Michigan on the SS Badger Ferry (our trip to New Orleans wasn't exactly R&R). Assembling this [...]
At our grandparents' grave - my sister, my brother and I Summer is the time of family reunions. Incidentally, just before my hip surgery, we had a family [...]
Cover image of my favorite children's book, given to me by my American grandparents in 1968 I feel like Cinderella these days as I am recovering from hip [...]
Not a place where we could eat, but it was still fun to see Paul Prudhomme's original restaurant still operational. I have his Fork in the Road cookbook, and his [...]
My great-grandfather with my grandmother, Reichenberg, 1932 "A few days before Kristallnacht, on the evening of Thursday, November 3, 1938, my great-grandfather walked up the hill to the [...]
Siebenhäuser Liberec Reichenberg Stadt, Sanatorium Dr. Max Brey When I visited my grandparents' hometown Liberec (Reichenberg) in the Czech Republic in 2009 on a research trip for Jumping [...]
For this weekend's Jewish holiday of Shavuot (celebrating God's giving the Ten Commandments and the Torah (five books of Moses) to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai) it is customary [...]
I might be good at writing my Morning Pages, but I am horrible at keeping Artist Dates. These are two of the three pillars sustaining a creative life, according to [...]
Five years of writing Morning Pages equals twelve notebooks On April 8, 2013, I wrote in my very first Black n' Red notebook: "I shall give this writing Morning [...]
Karlsruhe, Germany - Photo by Barbara Jester Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of my book's publication--the perfect time to share a few things that surprised me about publishing [...]
Passover is, after Rosh Hashana, my favorite Jewish holiday--mainly because it is all about home and family--and I love it despite, or maybe because of, all the work involved. Hosting [...]
Herta and I, Wiesbaden, 2002 Today would have been my Aunt Herta's birthday. I like to remember loved ones on their birthdays, and since Herta is one of [...]
How can a public place can be so personal? How can I be so attached to a place I don't own, maintain, nor have a say in its very existence? [...]
Why is it so meaningful to return to your roots? To where your ancestors are from? To visit places you only know from stories and pictures? I’ve asked myself that every [...]
When I first contemplated promoting my book Jumping Over Shadows through events, I was stumped to come up with topics I could present. {read the rest of the article on [...]
This is my favorite photo of our trip to Venice last March: My brother's hands caught taking a photo of the Grand Canale as we were standing on the Rialto [...]
Yours truly visiting the Ice Palace in St. Paul, MN Sunday, January 28, 2018 Inspired by a prompt in the current winter issue of Bella Grace, I kept [...]
I can't believe I'm about to write a blog post advocating going to the store. I am not much of a shopper. I quickly get mental overload at any kind [...]
The Artist & Writer's Workbook 2018 is here! Available as a free download if you sign up for my newsletter! (All my subscribers have already received it.) This year's title [...]
Today I'm picking up the practice of creating a time capsule of one ordinary day, namely December 12, begun back on 12/12/12 when that was simply one cool date. I [...]
With my brother-in-law's recent death, the topic of dealing with all the things the deceased leave behind has become center stage again for my husband and me. Incidentally, just prior [...]
My last visit with my brother-in-law Louis this summer As a memoir writer and particularly as the author of a family memoir, I am often asked how my [...]
My daughter wearing one of the hats I knitted for her after I learned to read American knitting patterns. I just began a new knitting project the other day--a hat [...]
Today marks the 79th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass, when most of the synagogues in the German Reich were destroyed along with Jewish shops and businesses. Until [...]
With all the barbarism we're facing these days (the truck-ramming terror attack in New York being the latest), I find it's good to remind ourselves of all the beauty and [...]
Storefront in Liberec, 2016 (Sadly, I wasn't able to figure out the exact site of Guido and Resi's store.) What happened to Ludwig during the war? Was he [...]
Today I'm happy to share my essay "Jewish Encounters in a Non-Jewish Land," published recently in the brand-spanking new Sasson Magazine. Please head on over [...]
I received this picture of my book from a reader in Germany. Without any input from me, she chose to take it in front of the post office in Görlitz [...]
On a day like today, when you wake up to such terrible news as the mass shooting in Las Vegas, what is there to do? Of course I'm following the [...]
"So how's it going with your book?" I'm often asked these days when I meet someone I haven't seen in a while. The truth is I'm never quite sure how [...]
It's been my custom to commemorate 9/11 by taking my Portraits 9/11/01 off the shelf and opening it at random to read some of the obituaries the New York Times so admirably [...]
...visit the Montfort Castle in northern Israel. As my contribution to the Field Guide to Everyday Magic Blog Hop, I'm sharing how I finally did so because I have found [...]
My book and I just had the great fortune of spending time in Jerusalem. For me it was an "again," and, while my book per se had not been to [...]
I adore snail mail art. As a kid, I loved to draw. That pastime, along with several others, has remained in my childhood. Over the past few years, however, I've [...]
These past few days I have been able to do what I love best in my writing life: rummage around in family history. I've been rewriting an essay that O [...]
Train station in Liberec (formerly Reichenberg) - the train in "The Flying Dutchman" left from here I owe the metaphor of the Flying Dutchman, title of one of the pivotal [...]
