Mini-Jewish Book Fair
AMY MINDELL
Special to The Jewish News
II
ometown scribes will take
center stage Sunday after-
noon, Nov. 8, during the
first-ever "Local Authors
Fair," held within the 47th annual
Jewish Book Fair.
The setting provides an opportuni-
ty for local authors to tout their wares,
meet fans and sign copies of their
work. Starting at. 11 a.m., six local
authors, Kary Moss, Steven Weiss,
Berl Falbaum, Ronald Yolles, Edith
Covensky and Jerry
Tobias, will speak
in the Meyers
Library of the D.
Dan and Betty
Kahn Jewish
Community Center
building in West
Bloomfield. Other
authors, who will
sign books only in
the building's Janice
Charach Epstein
Museum Gallery,
will include Robert
Edward Levin and
Mitzi Alvin.
"It's an experience we'd love to
repeat each year," said fair co-chair
Sylvia Gotlib. "People aren't aware of
how many local authors we have, and
that there are so many literate and
writing people in the metropolitan
area."
American Civil Liberties Union of
Michigan Executive Director Kary
Moss will speak at noon on The Rights
of Women and Girls (Puffin Books,
.$9.99), one of four ACLU handbooks
for young Americans. The Michigan
native, who is also an attorney and
adjunct professor at Wayne State
University Law School, explains that
the handbook is based on an earlier
book she co-wrote on women's rights.
Puffin Books asked her to write a sim-
ilar book for teenage girls.
"I describe the legal system in great
detail, and discuss issues like sex dis-
crimination, reproductive rights, fami-
ly law, education and employment,"
and each person's willingness to sacri-
fice of themselves for the other," Levin
says. He acknowledges that "to get to
that point, they had to go through
some horrific stuff."
The novel was released in October
and is available in local bookstores.
Levin has a new book in the works,
tentatively titled, When Cowboys Roam,
which is a saga of three brothers.
Poet Mitzi Alvin of Franklin will
also be on hand. The lifelong
Detroiter is poetry editor of The
Bridge, a national literary journal.
Evidence to the Contrary (Plain View
Press. $13) is her first book,
although she has published
many poems.
Alvin says living in
Michigan is an essential part
of her understanding of the
world. The first poem in her
book begins, "A Michigan
spring./Diffident, cold,/dour
skies (heron-blue, /hints of -4i
pastel.)/The air is heavy/and
wet. Wind/skitters silver
coins/across ponds and
,
small lakes.'
Poet Mitzi Alvin of
Novelist Robert
Alvin explains, "A
Franklin.
Edward Levin o
Michigan
climate affects
West Bloomfie ld
what I've written. You don't
have extremes in climates, and people
Moss says. "I think it will be helpful
tend to be 'normal'."
for young people trying to figure out
*-
Her Jewishness has also affected
their legal rights." With her book also
Alvin's writing. "We have a sense of
inspired by her 8-year-old daughter,
weariness, a sense of being disabused
Moss says she wants her "to grow up
about things," she said. "We don't take
believing her dreams can be fulfilled
things at face value, and there is the
and she can have ambitious dreams."
sense of standing back."
Moss notes that her Jewish identity
For Alvin, poems start with the
has always helped inform her commit-
flash of an idea, from a phrase or a
ment to legal justice: "I've always
glimpse of an image. She recently
identified with the Jewish emphasis on
wanted to write about spring, but
compassion and justice, and that has
lacked a form until a "gut of birds"
impacted my commitment to public
flew past her window.
interest law."
"They were cedar waxwings, tons of
Also on Sunday, West Bloomfield
them, flying through the air. One hit
novelist and poet Robert Edward
the window and dropped. When the
Levin will be on hand to sign copies
bird died, it was a kind of sacrifice.
of his novel The Lizard and the Fly
On a metaphorical level spring is the
(Voyage Books, $13.95).
season of hope, and then the bird
Levin's first book, American Meat,
died. I had the form, and I could
filled with what he calls "poetry with
work on the theme based on this con-
an attitude," appeared last year. His
crete event," she said. 0
first novel, The Lizard and the Fly, is a
gruesome page-turner that some have
compared to the popular thriller Kiss
The Local Authors Book Fair is
the Girls by James Patterson.
11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 8 in
For Levin, writing a novel was a
the Kahn Jewish Community
life-long dream. "It was a story that
Center in West Bloomfield.
was rolling around in my head. It's
Local Jewish
authors will
explain
what keeps
their cursors
moving.
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Top to bottom:
After Auschwitz by Edith Covensky.
Evidence to the Contrary by
Mitzi Alvin.
Hyperculture by Stephen Bertman.
The Doomsday-Kiss by Robert Davis.
The Rights of Women and Girls by
Kary Moss.
The Lizard and the Fly by
Robert Edward Levin.
Imma State by Jerry Tobias.
about friendship between two guys
10/30
1998
20 Detroit Jewish News
1