On her Instagram account, my wonderful book designer Melinda Martin put together this short tour of how we did the book design for Natalie and the Nazi Soldiers. This [...]
My new (and first) children's book is out! May I present: Natalie and the Nazi Soldiers, the story of a hidden child in France during the Holocaust, based on [...]
Dear Readers and Visitors, You might have noticed that all kinds of gibberish code is appearing on my home page and other pages. Some images are not loading properly. This [...]
That's me in front of my grandparents' former house in Liberec, Czech Republic, August 2002 I'm happy to share that I'm featured on this week's edition of the Genealogy [...]
War time diary of 12-year-old Sheila Cohen, living in London, 1940 (Jewish Museum, London - I took this photo in December 2018) Be sure to keep a diary [...]
The new edition of my Writer's Workbook is here! All you gotta do to receive it is subscribe to my newsletter. If you are a subscriber, you will have received [...]
This week I was immensely shocked and saddened to learn that my mentor Michael Steinberg died. I found out via a Facebook post from a mutual acquaintance. I had just [...]
Last week, after two months of much back and forth with my book production team at Inspire Books, I finally signed off on the cover of my forthcoming book How [...]
My husband and I with our first two kids and my in-laws (Nana is on the left), April 1999 Seminal moment for me today: I filed a Doing Business As [...]
One of my favorite stretches through the woods I have been out in the country, reveling in the glory of autumn. The fall foliage spectacle is on full display on [...]
Wedding picture in my book A book is a connector. That's one of the surprising things I learned after Jumping Over Shadows came out in April 2017. But now it's [...]
Excellent view of the White House and the Washington Monument as we were flying out of Washington, DC, and I was reading this book... I am not usually one to [...]
Get going on the road to writing (Empty road in Nevada, August 2011) Last Thursday, I was at a loss what to write for Friday's blog post. Uninspired, I thought, [...]
My writing studio in the attic of the Hemingway Birthplace Home, back when I was writer-in-residence. While I didn't particularly enjoy Roger Rosenblatt's Unless It Moves the Human Heart - [...]
Jumping Over Shadows in Karlsruhe (photo by Barbara Jester) As a writer, there is nothing I like more than connecting with a reader. So I was thrilled when Ellen Amarnek [...]
Writing Morning Pages is still the practice I most recommend to anyone who wants to bring writing into their life, and to anyone who wants to live a more deliberate [...]
Hitler himself visited Reichenberg on Friday, December 2, 1938. His visit was geared to rally the populace for the supplementary elections to the Reichstag, to be held the following Sunday, [...]
A writer should always keep a notebook. And I do! But what if you keep more than one? What if one notebook simply isn't enough to sort your thoughts, ideas, [...]
Parc Montsouris, Paris, September 2017 I have a new essay published in Bella Grace Issue 19, which hits newsstands today! I can't even begin to tell you how [...]
The WhatsApp message that began the daily ritual: "Here a photo for you, view from our hotel, you also sent me such nice photos of the big wide world [...]
The new edition of the Writer's Workbook is here! All you gotta do to receive it is subscribe to my newsletter. If you are a subscriber, you will have received [...]
Once in a while, one of Seth Godin's daily missives sticks in my mind, such as his idea of focusing on creating assets. That's how I understood his post The Daily. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Today is Yom HaShoa, Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorated by Jewish communities and individuals worldwide. In Israel, the most remarkable feature of the day is the siren that sounds at sundown (when [...]
In time for Easter, my essay "At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre" appeared on Jerusalem Moments. With it, I thought I'd share a few photos from and around this [...]
"The next time we visited her, a hazelnut torte would be waiting on her kitchen counter, glazed in glistening dark chocolate." Story and recipe on page 166 of Jumping [...]
Today is the publication date of my memoir Jumping Over Shadows! Hurray! And thus I offer you my very first book companion post, a series I plan to run every [...]
I love my Morning Pages. In fact, I'm going on four years of doing them. And yet, these days, I'm having a hard time sticking to this practice. This is [...]
