Book Design Tour of a Children’s Picture Book: A Peek Behind the Scenes
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Here it is, the cover of my memoir Jumping Over Shadows. And, incidentally, no sooner had we finalized the cover than the book appeared on amazon, book description, author bio and [...]