Episode 228: Inserting Ourselves into the Story (with Rena Rossner)
/We chat with author Rena Rossner about her new book, inserting ourselves into historical fiction, the fairy tales of her youth, and looking beyond the golem in Jewish folktales.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of antisemitism, leprosy/illness, pandemic, conflict/war, bigotry, cultural erasure, and misogyny.
Guest
Rena Rossner hails from Miami Beach, Florida. She is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University's Writing Seminars program, Trinity College, Dublin, and she holds a MA in history from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Her debut novel, The Sisters of the Winter Wood, was listed as "One of the 100 Best Books" of the year by Publisher's Weekly. She currently lives in Israel, where she works as a Literary Agent at The Deborah Harris Agency. Her grandparents and great grandparents immigrated to the USA from Hungary, Romania, Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova - their stories, together with her love of Jewish mythology and fantasy, inspire her work. Her most recent book is The Light of the Midnight Stars, which is now available.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Amanda recommends Gods & Lies from Realm.
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Transcript
Amanda: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week, we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
Julia: And I'm Julia.
Amanda: And this is Episode 28, fantastic interview, a book club almost, with Rena Rossner.
Julia: Yes, we were going to do a myth movie night, but then we interviewed Rena and we’re like, “Oh, dang. No, we got to talk about this book instead.”
Amanda: Yeah, we talked about storytelling, about that as women scribes, about heroines in stories, about Jewish mythology and storytelling. It is a fantastic interview. I am so stoked that we get to run it and Rena’s book, The Light of the Midnight Stars is now out. So, you can pick up a copy of that as part of the Spirits Book Club.
Julia: Do it. There's a link in this episode. Scroll down real quick. There's the link. Click it.
Amanda: And, speaking of, Julia, more things were excited about, people were happy to welcome into our home; Taylor, Lindsay, Luis, Nyx, Kate, and Penny. Thank you so much for joining our Patreon. This is what allows us to do podcasts as our job and to keep making the show for you. So, we greatly appreciate your support along with our supporting producer level patrons; Uhleeseeuh, Allison, Bryan, Debra, Hannah, Jane, Jessica Kinser, Jessica Stewart, Justin, Keegan, Kneazlekins, Liz, Megan Linger, Megan Moon, Phil Fresh, Polly, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sanna, Sarah, Scott, Skyla, and Zazi.
Julia: Always makes me happy to see some new names in there. I'm like, “Ooh, new friends.”
Amanda: Zazi, welcome. And, of course, our legend level patrons; Audra, Drew, Jack Marie, Ki, Lada, Morgan, Necroroyalty, Renegade, SamneyTodd, and Bea Me Up Scotty.
Julia: Oh, wonderful people. All delightful. So, Amanda, speaking of new delightful things, and people, and humans, and stories in your life, what you've been listening to, watching, reading lately?
Amanda: I just really enjoyed a new fiction podcast called Gods and Lies.
Julia: Ooh.
Amanda: It's contemporary fantasy, where humans live at the whims of gods and goddesses. And someone accuses someone else of murder. And that, as you might imagine, does not go well. So, I highly recommend it. You can go to Realm, R-E-A-L-M.fm to check out more about the company who made it, Realm and the show, Gods and Lies. Or find Gods and Lies in any podcast app.
Julia: That sounds great. I'm gonna subscribe right now.
Amanda: And, also, if you didn't know, we have been doing some digital live shows over the last year, over the pandemic. And it's something that we find really fun. We love that people from all over the world can attend even though we haven't visited, you know, like, Finland yet. Finland, I know you are super, super ready for it. I promise you. We're going to try to have physical live shows when it's possible again. But, in the meantime, you can go to multitude.productions/live for tickets to upcoming digital live shows from the various podcasts in the Multitude family and replays of past ones. So, Julia and I will be in an upcoming show for Join the Party. It's going to be a superhero-ey. One shot set in Lake Town City, our fictional Metropolis in Upstate New York. And I cannot wait. It's been super fun. All of that, multitude.productions/live.
Julia: I love doing live shows. They’re so much fun.
Amanda: Me too. Well, with that, everybody, please enjoy Spirits Podcast Episode 228: Spirits Book Club with Rena Rossner.
Intro Music
Amanda: We are delighted to be joined by Rena Rossner. Rena, welcome. Please let our, our folks know who you are and what you write.
Rena: So, my name is Rena Rossner. My debut novel is titled, The Sisters of the Winter Wood. And my next book comes out really soon, less than two weeks now. It's called The Light of the Midnight Stars. And they're both fantasy novels, which are based on Jewish mythology and folklore in a nutshell. I'm also a literary agent at the Deborah Harris Agency based in Jerusalem, Israel. Yeah, I have five kids and a pug. And there's all sorts of other stuff about me, but that, that's the juicy stuff. Yeah. And thank you so much for having me.
Julia: Of course. Our pleasure.
Amanda: We do need to know your dog's name if you don't mind.
Julia: It's very important.
Rena: It's actually Pablo Picasso Neruda because I couldn't decide—
Julia: Oh, my gosh.
Rena: —if he was a Picasso or a Neruda. So, he's sort of, like, a poet artists dog.
Amanda: Delightful.
Julia: I love that. It’s so beautiful.
Rena: [laughs]
Amanda: Top marks.
Julia: So, for our listeners, to kind of entice them because, obviously, after hearing this episode, they're gonna want to buy your book. But can you tell us a little bit about it?
Rena: Absolutely. Actually, there was, like, a review that just came out, which described it in the most wonderful way. That's why I love reviewers because, sometimes, they say things and I'm like, “That's exactly what my book is about. I had no idea.”
Amanda: Gonna borrow that.
Rena: It, it was a School Library Journal Review that’s actually a star review, which is very exciting. And it said, “It's a story about dragon-riding rabbis and their fire-breathing daughters.” And I was like, “That's delightful.”
Amanda: It’s exactly it.
Rena: Of course, it's about more than that, but it's a really good one liner. And I think I'm gonna use it a lot. [laughs] It's also a story of tragedy and loss. There's a lot of sadness to it, but it's also kind of based on a lot of Jewish history even though it's a sort of alternate history and my own take on, you know, what might have been – an imagining of what might have been. This is a story of three sisters who each have different magical abilities who come from the line King Solomon himself and what that would look like if that was such a thing. There are things in Judaism where people trace their lineage from the Kohenic, you know, and Levi dynasties. And, like, it's even been, like, genetically sourced. And, so, it wasn't such a farfetched thing to be like, “But what if there were these people who had magical abilities from King Solomon?” Because there's all these things that King Solomon supposedly was able to do. There's a million different reasons, which I'm sure we'll get into, where the book came about from. And there are a lot of different kernels that all sort of came together. But I think that's, in a nutshell, what it's about.
Julia: Can you tease a little bit of the powers that they have from King Solomon? Because I know you pulled them from, like, existing sources of, you know, historically or, in the mythology, the powers that King Solomon had. Can you give us a little teaser of that?
Rena: So, usually, when people think about King Solomon, they think about his inability to talk to animals and ability to make things grow. And, when I did more research into, like, what are some of the other abilities or what was some of the things that he was known for, I also came across this kind of ability to chart and read astrology. Like, to chart the pattern of the stars, or even to move the heavens, or to control the weather. And, so, one of the sisters doesn't really talk to animals. She sort of more shapeshifts, which was the thing that was in the Sisters of the Winter Wood. And I really wanted to continue that as a trend. I don't know if it will be in all my books. I love the idea of shifters. There's a lot in the book that is about, like, shifting, changing your name, changing who you are. You know, telling a story and then telling it again in a different way and how we transform ourselves through stories. And, so, all those things sort of, like, you know, are part of that and why I'm, I'm intrigued by that. So, that was where the animal. So, one sister can sort of control fire, but she can also sort of shape shift into animals. One sister can chart the pattern of the stars, astrology, you know, read the future in the heavens. And the third sister can make things grow and, you know, control, like, the garden, earth, all different types of ability to connect to plants and nature, that sort of thing.
Julia: Very cool. I also know that the story takes some inspiration from the Romanian myth of the Solomonars. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Rena: So, the book began because my grandmother used to light candles in a closet. And I never saw it happen. My father and his sisters swore it happened. And, as she got older and by the time I came along, she didn't do it already. The candles had moved to the center of the table and she sort of denied it ever happened. But my father and his sisters still remember. And, so, I started to look into like, “Why did my grandmother light candles in the closet?” And, like, the natural normal thing is that you would think, in Judaism, that she would have been of maybe Spanish and Portuguese descent, a Converso, the Spanish Inquisition, something like that. But there was no trace of any of that in my family as far as we knew. So, I started down this rabbit hole. And I knew she came from Romania. And, so, I started to try to figure out – and there have been genealogies done on, like, almost every other part of the family but not her side. So, I was sort of doing my own genealogy and trying to figure out – okay, but – because the story of Judaism is always like, “But where did she come from before Romania?”
Julia: Mhmm.
Rena: Right. So, I was like, okay, but before – and, in the end, as far as I can tell and from the research I was able to do, she actually came more from, like, the Hungarian Empire, which it's not Hungary. Parts of it were Valahia, which is partly Romania. Parts of it were today's Slovakia. But that whole region was sort of part of the Hungarian Empire. And I never knew that Jews were sort of kicked out of Hungary in, in the 1200s and even made to wear, like, a kind of badge, which was fascinating to me. So, as far as I can tell, like, there were Spanish and Portuguese Jews that ended up in Romania, but the majority of the Jews, it seems like, came in flight from Hungary. And, so, that was sort of, like, where I ended up. So, then I started to say, “Okay. Well, what are the – what are the myths? Like, what's, what is the surrounding?” And that's when I came across the, the Solomonars, to answer your question. That was a little long winded.
Julia: [chuckles] No, I like it.
Rena: [laughs] So, the Solomonars were a kind of a – it's somewhat of an anti-Semitic trope. There were these red-haired mountain Men and women, but usually men, who could control the weather and rode cloud dragons in the skies and carried a book. And there are all these things, you know, about them. And, if you do research into it, it's sort of, like, it was sort of an anti-Semitic trope. And what I did in, in The Sisters of the Winter Wood was I sort of played with a different anti-Semitic trope like that of goblins, you know, and the things that sort of, like, Jews were accused of being hook-nosed and, and money hungry, and those sorts of things. And, in my book – in that book, I sort of played with that. Like, it wasn't the Jews who were that. It was these, you know, shapeshifting sort of creatures that tempted girls with fruit. [chuckles] And, so, I wanted to play on another anti-Semitic trope in here because I kind of like – I had a lot of fun turning it on its head and being like, “But what if we reclaimed this?” and that sort of thing.
Amanda: Mhmm.
Rena: So, that was where this – the idea of the Solomonars and, obviously, King Solomon. Okay. Like, you know, like I said, the Kohenic and Levi lineage. It's something that would make sense. And, so, I started to kind of play with all of that and be like, “Well, where would I set it and who would the people be?” and, and that sort of thing. So, yes.
Julia: Yeah. And I think it's really interesting because, a lot of times, when we have authors on the show and they're talking about, like, mythology and stuff like that, they're talking about how, like, they're drawing from their own, like, backgrounds in mythology and then creating a world kind of whole cloth out of that. But you, specifically, are writing historical fiction, which I think is really, really interesting. Like, historical fantasy, which I feel like I want more of that.
Rena: Mhmm.
Julia: So, I, I can see kind of the pathway that led you into the choice of writing something more historically based than creating a whole world whole cloth, which I think is really interesting. And I'm, I’m so glad that I get to hear the story to kind of wind its way into that choice. It's, it’s very, very cool. Was there anything else that you were like, “I definitely want this to be at least somewhat historically based” besides the, the story of your grandmother and kind of the idea, like, where did she come from before?
Rena: Well, yeah. So, like I said earlier, I think that it is a kind of alternate history.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rena: Because one of the things that I, I do in my work – and it's really important to me – is sort of inserting women back into the story because, throughout history – and it's not just a Jewish thing by any means, right? But, definitely, it's definitely a Jewish thing. Also, women sort of disappear from the story. Even if you look at the Bible, right, like the Old Testament, there's, like, Abraham and Sarah and, you know, Isaac and Rebecca. And then slowly, slowly, by the time you get to the prophets, there's, like, Deborah. [laughs]
Amanda: [chuckles].
Rena: And then maybe in the [Inaudible 11:16], there's like [Inaudible 11:17]. That's it. Like, women just disappear from the story. And why? Because men were the ones writing down the stories. Very often, when you do historical fiction, I think the only way to do it is to sort of make it up, which is why it's historical fiction. And mine is even more, you know, take it a step further to historical fantasy, but I also sort of love the things like writers like Jo Walton do with alternate history, which is like, “But what if it happened this way?” you know. And, so, I sort of look for historical markers. And, so, I did find this rabbi, Isaak Tyrnau, who actually lived 100 years later than when my story takes place who had three daughters, it seems. [laughs]
Julia: [laughs]
Amanda: [laughs]
Rena: From the research I was able to do. And one of his daughters sort of married this duke who converted to Judaism. And there's a story told about them. Is it true? Is it a myth? Is it a story that was passed down from generation? We don't know, you know. But I like the idea that this was a real person who existed. And the one thing we do have, not from his daughter but from him, was a book called, you know, The Book of Customs, which, which he had written. And, so, I was able to kind of, like, read that and be like, “Okay. This was what Judaism somewhat looked like in the Medieval Era in this region.” You know, he was from that region. And it was the same region my grandmother, hypothetically, was from. Right. So, all of those things sort of came together. And I like latching on to a real story and to be like, “Okay. We think these people existed. This is when we think they existed. He, he had daughters. What's their story?” Like, that's the made up part, right? But it's all these things that sort of come together to be like, “Okay. This is a story I can tell with a fair amount of certainty, which is based on people that might have existed or that did exist.” And then I take it and make it my own.
Amanda: And I love that one of the sisters in The Light of the Midnight Stars is a woman scribe, which maybe wasn't as rare as I think it is, but reading it on the page still felt really electrifying and exciting.
Rena: Right. So, I think that, in the absence of a son, it stands to reason that a rabbi might have had a daughter who took notes for him or, you know, a mother who was a healer, which very often Jews were. And it's also wise. So, the book takes place in a sort of, like, the time of the black plague. I sort of take it to the place of, like, a black mist and I call it something else. It's sort of something that sweeps in, which is also sort of, like, a take on, you know, hatred and anti-Semitism and, and a wave sweeping through Europe, right? So, it starts to corrupt the trees for us and then it, it enters your home. And, so, it was that. It’s also was a cross between sort of the Black Death and leprosy, which, like, biblical leprosy was something that can infect the walls of your home, or the plants, the trees. You know, something that's sort of, like, insidious and starts to spread and then you can't control it. It definitely helped that we're going through, like, the global pandemic that we're going through right now.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rena: Because I was like, “Oh, we know what this feels like to have something insidiously sweeping its way through Europe and then the rest of the world.”
Amanda: Biological plagues. Ideological play.
Rena: Right.
Amanda: There's just a menu to choose from.
Rena: It stands to reason though a lot of – like, a lot of times, Jews were accused of blood libel or Jews were accused of spreading the black plague. And, sometimes, that was because they had different customs, right? Some people say that even, like, going back to the Solomonar story that Jews would – we still do build these huts on Holiday of Sukkot. And we shake, like, long palm fronds and lemons – strange lemons at the sky and call for rain. Now, it happens to be around the rainy season. So, very often, it does rain, right? But you could see how somebody would say, “Who are these strange people shaking things at the sky praying for rain?” and how that extrapolates itself into, “Well, maybe there are these red-haired mountain men that control the weather and ride cloud dragons.” But cloud dragons are so cool, you know.
Amanda: That's awesome.
Julia: Cloud dragons are very cool. Also, that's quite a step from one to the other. But, you know, it's, it's the high Middle Ages. That makes sense.
Rena: Yeah, it was really fun to kind of think about, like, what if. And the truth is, is that a lot of women probably were illiterate, even Jewish women, you know, in this time period. But, again, the only way we can write the story of the women who are sort of lost to history for us is to, to sort of insert ourselves into the story and say, “What if?”
Julia: Absolutely. I really like to – not to get off track from Jewish mythology because I'm, I’m always happy to talk about that. But your story is also very much inspired by fairy tales. Did you grow up with fairy tales as a kid? What was, like, one of the stories you remember, like, sticking with you?
Rena: Absolutely. So, like I said, this book, I'm always like, “Let me talk – let me start again and tell you how this book really began.”
Julia: I like that.
Rena: But that's actually really what my book is about, right? Because my book is about people telling stories and telling story. And then you get to the end and you find out that the whole thing was a story that someone else was telling. And every character has a story that they try to tell to sort of tell their own story, you know. So, yeah. So, there's a lot of stories within a story. So, I had originally been writing a different book as my follow up to The Sisters of the Winter Wood. And my publisher was like, actually, really want another fairytale retelling. And I was like, “Okay. I can do that.” And, so, I sat down with all of these Andrew Lang fairy tale books, which I have because my mother used to read them to me. So, I was born in Miami Beach, Florida. That's where I'm originally from. And I did spend about half my life there, but my family moved to Israel when I was a year-and-a-half old. And we lived here for about five to six years and then we went back to Miami. And, when we lived here, because Israel has always had this sort of historical relationship with the UK and also just book people know, like, the way that foreign editions work is very often the UK editions or the editions that make it to the rest of the world besides the US in terms of like export sales. And, so, my literary agents started coming out. [laughs]
Julia: [chuckles]
Rena: I didn't know that then, of course. But a lot of the books that I was read to as a child were British books because that's what we got here in English. And, so, my mom would read these Andrew Lang, The Green Fairy Book, The Violet Fairy Book, The Red Fairy Book. You know, I don't even know how she, she found them here. And she would read to me. I actually had a loft bed that had a long ladder up to the loft bed and a window by my loft because we didn't have a fifth bedroom. So, my parents sort of, like, made a fifth bedroom on the second floor of the house. And I was, like, five. So, that was where I slept. And it was all very fairy tale like though because my mom would climb the ladder at night—
Amanda: Yeah.
Rena: —and sit on the bed with me and read me from Andrew Lang's fairy tales. And, so, I actually, like, later in life, collected whatever I didn't have and have pretty much almost the whole collection, which are kind of rare and hard to find now. So, I'm really glad I did that. Like, I was just like, “Oh, these were my childhood books.” Not realizing like, “Oh, now, they're worth a lot of money.” So, The Violet Fairy Book, there's a story called Boys With Golden Stars that I remember being read to as a child. I was always like, “Huh! Is this a Jewish story?” Not to get back to the Judaism, but, but it's there. You know, like—
Julia: Yeah. Right.
Rena: —what would that look like if someone's – you know, if there are boys who have golden stars in their forehead? The automatic association for me was like, “Ooh,” you know. And, so, I was also looking for Romanian fairytale because that's sort of, you know, part of where my family's from. It sort of began from there as well. I also, in looking into Romanian mythology and folklore, was totally fascinated by – and I absolutely probably gonna butcher this, but, like, I think it's called Luceafărul story, which is Mihai Eminescu, who is Romanian. I think he's poet laureate or, you know, certainly, one of the most well-known Romanian poets. There's a whole mythology about these zmeu and balauri. Like, these Romanian sort of dragons, sort of incubi, male creatures, mythological creatures who seduce young maidens in their beds but are also meteors that fall from the sky. And I was like, “That's cool,” you know. So, Boys With Golden Stars, what if boys that are stars? What if they're boys that fall from the sky, you know? And, definitely, like, was inspired for sure by Neil Gaiman, Stardust, who – you know, there's a girl that is a star who falls from the sky. But I was like, “But what if it was an incubi? And what if it looked like this, you know?” And the story is that young maidens would kind of, like, meet these, these men, be seduced by them, and then be, like, inconsolable and wander the streets longing for this lost star. And, so, definitely, one of my sisters takes after that and follows that story. But that alone wasn't enough. Like, it all sort of built, you know, one myth upon the other myth and one story of how the other story.
Amanda: And I think, in letting us rotate through the sisters’ perspectives, it also feels like we're in three different tales, which is, like, within this kind of one wider universe, which is really exciting, I feel like I often feel lucky if we get, like, one female protagonists to follow, you know, or the rich inner life that we get to experience. So, the minute I see the second chapter switch perspective, I was like, “Oh, fuck yeah, dude. Like, yes, I'm so excited.”
Julia: We love a switch perspective here on Spirits.
Amanda: Totally.
Rena: Oh, I'm glad. I mean I don't – I feel like I don't know how to write any other way. Like, I have a lot of different ways of getting at a story. But every story I've ever written has always had multiple points of view because I'm always like, “Okay. I'm gonna take from this, and I'm gonna take from that, and I'm gonna take from that, and it's all going to come together to tell a story.” I don't know why that's how I write. That's just how I write.
Julia: Why be limited to one perspective, you know?
Amanda: Yeah, I think it also, structurally, kind of reinforces what you were talking about earlier, which is, like, you know, there are many perspectives on a story, ways of telling a story, every retelling changes a story, which is, to my perspective, a lot of Judaism is about, you know, safeguarding, transmitting, and making sure that the stories stay alive. So, how, how did that kind of broader, like, context sort of inform this book in particular?
Rena: Right. And it goes back to also fairy tales, right, which are told and retold and told in a million different versions—
Amanda: Mhmm.
Rena: —and pass through the generations. You know, yeah, in Judaism, we have, like, this concept of the Oral Law. And, at some point, it was written down. But so much about, you know, our practice is about like, “Well, this is what my mother did.” We've actually been talking a lot about it because it's Passover now, you know. And I was saying to, like, my daughter. I was like, “You're gonna do what I do probably just because that's what I did. You know, like, you're gonna cover your countertops the way I did. And you're probably gonna make the recipes that I make. And you're gonna marry somebody and he may, or she, or whoever you end up with may end up with different customs than your customs. But you're always gonna go back to” – and what I do has nothing to do with actual law. Like, there's a million different ways to celebrate Passover. It depends on where you came from. But, ultimately, it always depends on, like, what your parents did. Usually, what your mother did, how your mother turned her kitchen over, you know, maybe your father. But I think that fairy tales are the same way. You always remember the story that you were told whether, you know, the version you were told came from the Grimm, you know, or whether it was the French version, or whether it was, you know, a Chinese retelling. There's so many different ways that fairy tales make their way and, and fairy tale tropes make their way through the world that are told and retold as fables, as moral tales, as darker, less dark. And, and, so, there's just a lot that's similar. I grew up in a lot of like Hasidic, you know, tales, Jewish stories. And they're actually – like, their miracles tales.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rena: Like, they are fantasy. Even though we tend to think that, like, there isn't a lot of fantasy in Judaism, there's a ton. It's just that we're not calling it by that name. There's often rabbis who make it from one place to another in a record amount of time or which we call, like, [Inaudible 21:51]. Like, they jumped the path or there are often people who are miraculously healed. Like, that's also a miracle, right? They’re, they're more like miracle tales, but they're still – that's still fantasy. You know, that's still magic of some sort or another. And that's something, again, that just – it repeats itself in so many different ways. And, and this whole – the whole region of, like, you know, the Hungarian Empire, what's now Slovakia, but was, you know, at some point, Czechoslovakia or, you know, Valahia, which was part of Hungary, but then not part of Hungary, and all these shifting borders. But they’re still were all people who were sort of talking the same language, not in terms of language, but in terms of like the mythology and folklore that surrounded them; the trees, the flora and fauna. Like, all those things, you know, resulted in different versions of the same tales being told and retold. No matter what religion you are a part of, you see the same threads repeat themselves.
Amanda: Totally. There's culture of location, of family, of, you know, school friends and all of them overlap to be something that is, like, every person has their own Venn diagram in that way.
Midroll Music
Julia: Amanda, I've been doing some spring cleaning of my closet lately. And there's some pieces in there that I absolutely love but are just at the point where I need to let them go. I need to refresh my wardrobe a little bit. And, thankfully, I had my Stitch Fix box delivered this month and it was just the perfect timing for filling out those needs in my closet that I had to fill, right? So, Stitch Fix is great because I can tell them exactly what I'm looking for. I can be like, “Hey, this month, I need some jeans. I don't have any good jeans right now.” And Stitch Fix is like, “Got you. Here's, like, three different pairs of jeans that might absolutely delight you.” I'm like, “Thank you, Stitch Fix.”
Amanda: [chuckles]
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Amanda: We are also sponsored this week by Skillshare. This is an online learning community that is offering Spirits listeners a free trial of premium membership. So, somewhere you can go to take small steps, to take manageable classes, to watch really well-produced videos in order to learn a new skill to bring to work or a hobby or a creative outlet to, you know, try a new thing and surprise yourself. Julia, I know you've been really enjoying cross stitching recently. And it's something that brings you a lot of joy. And maybe it's cross stitching. Maybe it's sculpture or maybe it's gardening or watercolor. Lots of options for awesome stuff to kind of enhance your creativity and make you happy on Skillshare.
Julia: What have you been doing lately, Amanda?
Amanda: I got very excited to see a class by one of my favorite poets, Hanif Abdurraqib, who had a class called Writing for Expression: How to Make Your Words More Artful & Lyrical, which I was like, “Wow. It's a writing class that is not exactly poetry.” It's not about, like, prose or memoir or whatever. It's, like, how to express yourself in your writing no matter what kind of writing it is. And I really enjoyed it. And I think he's a great not just writer but person talking about writing, which are two very different things.
Julia: [chuckles]
Amanda: So, if you want your free trial of premium membership that Skillshare has set aside just for Spirits listeners, go to skillshare.com/spirits to get a free trial of premium membership that is skillshare.com/spirits. Julia, one of my favorite sort of days of the year is the day that I can open the window in my bathroom and, like, have a nice pleasant breeze as I shower. And, when it is cold outside, it is far too cold. It's freezing cold because the window is, like, at the very top of the shower. It doesn't have a view or anything, but it does let in the breeze. And this morning I had a lovely breeze as I took a shower with a faint scent of eucalyptus.
Julia: Ooh.
Amanda: Because I was using my Function of Beauty not just shampoo and not just conditioner but also body wash because I am fully converted. I love it so much. It leaves my skin feeling moisturize. It leaves my hair feeling, you know, really full and, like, not frizzy because those are my hair goals. But, if you want to find out what yours are, you got to go to Function of Beauty and take their quick quiz. It is very, very easy. It is quick. It’s like 60 seconds and makes a unique formula for you and for your hair specifically. There are over 60,000 real five-star customer reviews on their website. I would definitely give them a five-star rating as well. And my favorite thing, as I said before, is that you can decide not just the scent, but the level of scent you want or even unscented in your products, which is amazing. You could put your little name on the bottle. You could choose the color of the shampoo, or conditioner, or body wash. It's just, like, endlessly customizable, which I love.
Julia: So, you, like Amanda, can fully convert to Function of Beauty by going to functionofbeauty.com/spirits to take your quiz and save 20 percent off your first order. That applies to their full range of customized hair, skin, and body products. That's a functionofbeauty.com/spirits to let them know that you heard about it from us and to get 20 percent off your order, functionofbeauty.com/spirits.
Amanda: And, now, let's get back to the show.
Julia: Talking a little bit more about kind of Jewish myth, and legend, and stories just like you were saying, I know that we've talked about, like, the golem on the show before. And I know that you can speak to, like, more myths and tales, especially since I know you've done a keynote that's literally titled, Going Beyond the Golem. Not to limit you to, like, just one or anything like that because that would be ridiculous, but what are, like, some stories that you wish more people knew about on the same level as the golem?
Rena: I think it's so easy to default to that because that's, like, what people – most people know.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rena: But there are so many more. I mean one of the best books to, like, start with – I mean it's, at least, the text that I refer to the most. It's called Sacred Monsters. One of the things I, I like is that he – it’s a rabbi who wrote it. And he sort of goes through an – like a very traditional orthodox rabbi who actually was sort of – people didn't look too kindly upon what he was doing because there's this – I don't know why. Like, we have this thing in, specifically, Orthodox Judaism because I can't speak to, you know, the other denominations as much. But that that magic left us. Prophecy left us and we moved on. And it used to be a part of our world, but it is no longer. And that's sort of the narrative that I grew up on. But I don't think that that's true. Like, if, if you go back not even too far, first of all, even – like there are certain elements of Jewish magic that are alive and well. Even in Israel, there are certain wise women you can go to who pour lead into water and read the shape of the lead or, you know. And there are stories in the 1600s about women who would read the shape of oil in water. There's all these words for these like geomancy, and eleomancy, and lecanomancy. And – right. And there are treatises that were written by, by rabbis about, like, throwing sand onto tables and reading the pattern that that or casting rocks. The one thing that was sort of, like, forbidden was blood and bone magic. Like, that was considered – like, that's not okay. That's what necromancers do. And, so, all of that's connected to, like, the different ways that, like, magic manifested itself in Judaism. With all of that though, that's all – also connected to the spirit world. Like, there are so many different spirits. Like, shedim, we call them or ruach, ruach refaim, dybbuks. Right. And, and, so, the dybbuk is another one of those things like the golem that a lot of people know. But there are so many different ways that can manifest itself. And, beyond that, the – what, what – the name of the rabbi is Natan Slifkin, who wrote Sacred Monsters. He goes into like, “But what were the animals? What were the mythology, you know, beyond the Leviathan? I could have written – it’s the same lecture I gave. It could have been, “Let's go beyond the Leviathan,” right?
Julia: Mhmm.
Rena: You know, in The Light of the Midnight Stars, I play with the idea of, like, the estrie, which is the sort of, like, female vampire, like, spirit. There’s a book called Sefer Hasidim, which is, like, the Book of the Pious, which is very well-known. It doesn't exist in too many English translations. Most of the research I do I do in Hebrew because I can. So, in Sefer Hasidim, they talk about, like, witches who might have been estrie who are part werewolf, part vampire-like. And there's all this stuff about, like, they have to tie their hair back and, and put a ring of salt around them or stuffed earth into their mouths. And I'm saying all these things and, if you've read my book, you know where I'm going with this, right? Like – and, so, again, I wanted to play with, like – one of my characters is sort of accused of being an estrie. But who's the real estrie is sort of the person who does it to her.
Amanda: Mhmm.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rena: You know, who's sort of, like, her own kind of, like, black malevolent spirit,or a dragon-like spirit, or estrie-like spirit. And, so, if you go into Romanian mythology, there's, like, the striga. The striga, the strigoi, like, you know, there's different names for something that's very similar to that. So, that's another creature that's a lot of fun to play with. And, and then, again, I played with the, like, the zmeu, the [Inaudible 30:54 – Zburător]. I'm sure I'm not pronouncing these right.
Amanda: [laughs]
Rena: The balauri, like, these Incubus-like, dragon-like theory creatures. Well, in Judaism, there's also, like, dragon-like characters that are made a flame that fly above the sky during war time that are mentioned in all of these sort of, like, end-of-day prophecies, but also, like, are – were actual supposed – supposed creatures that existed. And, again, you see that interconnection of, like, there are these dragon myths and they're these dragon myths. And then, like, well, what if they met here and became the same thing?
Julia: Mhmm.
Rena: I don't think you have to dig too far to find a lot of other examples of Jewish magical creatures, fantastical beasts, and – you know, in Judaism. And I do wish people went a little bit beyond the golem. Even though the golem is super fun to play with, take it to a place of, like, what if it wasn't like a mud man? What if it was like a mud frog who wreaked havoc or, you know?
Julia: [laughs]
Rena: [chuckles] Like, if you can make a man with mud, you could do a lot of things with mud. Let's talk about that, you know. And I just think that people don't know where to begin because it's, it was something that was sort of anathema to our culture. It was something that sort of the rabbi's decided was no longer relevant. So, we're not going to talk about it. And only the people who had access to these books, only the people who had the literacy to be able to read them. You know, the ability to – you know, they exist and they're still in print, right? But you have to be able to have access to them. And, for hundreds and hundreds of years, I think people didn't or the right kind of people didn't, you know, or the wrong kind of people did and which is why they were sort of, you know, hidden away and just become something less talked about, which I think is really unfortunate.
Julia: Yeah.
Amanda: Well, I look forward to reading many, many of your books in the future and being like, “Ah, yes, I recognize that.”
Rena: [laughs] Yes, one of the things that I'm working on now is – I, I don't know. It could be five years till this comes out because it depends on how long it takes me to write it. And who knows what. It's not sold yet. There’s this rabbi named Rebbe Nachman of Breslov that a lot of people know and sort of, like, an ascetic in himself. And there – but there are a lot of Hasidim that still follow him today and his teachings. He passed away, like, the age of 40. He lived in, like, 1700-1800s. He wrote fairy tales himself. There's a book of fairy tales that he wrote and they're completely original. And they sort of predate, like, the Yiddish fairy tales that people know from, like, the, you know, late 1800s to early 1900s by about 100 years.
Julia: Wow.
Amanda: Wow.
Rena: And they're completely original. And they're like, “There was a princess and she was lost. And there was a king that went to go find her.” And, like, stuff like that. Like, you really could read them. There's, like, nothing Jewish about them. And it's fascinating to me. And, even more so, he published it in a bilingual edition, Hebrew and Yiddish, because he wanted women to be able to read them. And he also only had daughters. You see where this is going? [laughs]
Julia: [laugh]
Amanda: [laugh] Yeah.
Rena: And, so, I'm really interested in sort of playing with that next and I have started. Those are the things that really interests me, the confluence of, like, “Where were women in history? Where do we fit into the story? What was our literacy like, you know, and not just as Jews, just like as women, you know, in the world? And how may have that manifested itself in different ways? And, like, where's our part of the story? How do we find the kernels that we can expand upon, you know? So that we can find our place in history so much of which is lost to u.
Amanda: Amazing.
Julia: I want to talk about Eating the Bible because I love this concept. Can you tell me a little bit about that and the story about the lentils—
Rena: Yes.
Julia: —and what kind of led to?
Rena: So, there's definitely a theme in all of my work. Before I wrote these novels, I had written other novels that have not seen the light of day. Maybe, it well. Maybe, it won’t. Who knows. I've been writing my whole life since I was, like, eight. Everybody finds their path to publication in many different ways. And, so, I was on this sort of circuit of like, “Well, maybe I want to be a journalist. And maybe I want to write that literary nonfiction and you know.” So, I worked in journalism for a lot of years. And I started at the Jerusalem Report, which is a magazine, and then I worked at the Jerusalem Post. And then the editor of that moved to the Times of Israel. And, so, I sort of worked for that. Anyway, while I was doing all of that and figuring out that I actually have no desire to work in journalism and, certainly, don't ever want to work in journalism in Israel because I cannot handle the politics. And there will politics. Like, even in the, like, fluff stories they’d let me write about like food, you know, there were always – I asked if I could have a column where I connected the weekly portion of Torah that we read. In the Orthodox cycle, we read the whole Torah, like, one portion every week. I think that conservative and reformed do different things. They, they finished the Torah, like, every three years and whatever. But that's what I know. And I used to get really frustrated by the fact that, like, my husband would, like, pick up a book and, like, read something for five minutes and have something nice to share at the Shabbat table. And I would have cooked in the kitchen for, like, 17 hours. And I would be like, “I made a lot of food,” you know. So, I was like, “Well, how do I bring some storytelling to the table? Like, how do I cook things that are from the parsha that sort of the – from the weekly portion enabled me to bring food to the table and have it become a conversation piece? So, that was how Eating the Bible began. It was, like, a three-year column that ran. I wrote every week. I created a recipe and matched it to the weekly portion. And, after about three years, I was like, “I'm done.” [laughs]
Amanda: [laughs]
Julia: [laughs]
Rena: And that sort of became the book, Eating the Bible, which was translated into five languages actually.
Amanda: It's amazing.
Rena: And came out in, like, a special Barnes and Noble edition and all, all sorts of fun stuff. But you definitely can see the threads of that, I think, in my novels, I love food. I'm a foodie. I love especially baking, but also all sorts of cooking. There's nothing that makes me happier than just, like, give me a kitchen stock with ingredients and I will have so much fun.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: [chuckles]
Rena: And, even when I'm stressed, like, that's what I love to do. Like, I stress bake all the time. I did this afternoon. It's Passover and things are complicated. And things are just busy and crazy. And, you know, hello, pandemic. So, I was like, “I think we need some Passover chocolate chip cookies,” which is literally what I just made.
Julia: Fantastic.
Rena: But I love experimenting with different ingredients. And I love experiment, you know. So, so, all of that – Eating the Bible sort of was something I never planned on. I never planned on writing a cookbook. I never planned on being a foodie. Actually, through the process of writing that cookbook and doing all of the, like, PR that I did for it here because it came out in English first, but then it came out in Hebrew here in Israel.
Julia: Mhmm.
Rena: And I used to have to show up at, like, recording studios at, like, 5:00 in the morning with, like, 17 courses made, plated, and ready to go, like, in Tel Aviv, which is an hour from here. I sometimes dragged my little children with me because I had, like, no one else to watch them. And, after that, I was like, “Yeah, I don't – I don't think I want a career in food.” [laughs]
Amanda: [laughs]
Julia: I'm good, actually. [laughs]
Rena: You know, it's like, when people write novels, nobody asks you to, like, show up to a podcast and be like, “Read the new short story that you created just for us.”
Amanda: Full makeup. Yeah.
Rena: Right? Like, yeah, in for makeup. I was literally asked sometimes to, like, create brand new recipes for certain magazines and TV shows. They'd be like, “What – bring us something that's not in the cookbook.”
Rena: And I'm like, “It doesn't work that way.”
Julia: Also, we're promoting the cookbook.
Rena: Yeah.
Julia: Wouldn't you want a recipe from the cookbook?
Rena: Yeah. So, so, Eating the Bible sort of just happened. You know, like, will I ever read another cookbook again? Probably not. Just because I don't want to have to do those interviews again at 5:00 in the morning, like, with all the food ready, and made, and plated that I've been cooking for, like, seven days. Yeah. No.
Julia: Fair enough.
Amanda: Speaking of the publishing industry, you are also a literary agent. Do you see those different careers being a writer and an agent? Or, I'm sure you're just kind of, like, swimming in books and writing at all times in all ways.
Rena: Yeah. So, you know, I've been a writer and reader my whole life. And my first job was at a bookstore. I worked at Books & Books in Miami Beach, which is an amazing independent bookstore chain now. But Mitch Kaplan, who still runs Books & Books, gave me my first job when I was, like, 14. And it was, like, my sanctuary.
Amanda: What a gift.
Rena: I worked there as many hours as I could all the time all through high school and then even through college like whenever I'd come home. At college, I already worked at, you know, the local campus bookstore, which is like a Barnes and Noble Book Center. And then, grad school at McGill in Montreal, I worked at the bookstore. At a certain point – I think a lot of bookstore employees go through this. Like, at a certain point, you're like, “I either need to quit or I will be doing this for the rest of my life.” And at certain point, I was like, “Okay. I need to quit working in bookstores because it feeds my soul, but it also doesn't pay very well, you know.”
Julia: Hmm.
Amanda: Yeah.
Rena: And, so, at a certain point, I stopped working in bookstores and was like, “Okay. We’re gonna do other things with our – with our time.” I was always writing in the background. And, so, what are the jobs that are open to people who just, like, devour books for a living? You know, like, just for – in order to live, not for a living, but who want to do it for a living. I worked here as a grant writer. I worked as a journalist. I worked in all these sort of like other related fields until finally, I think, I had my fifth kid and I was like, “I'm bored. I need to go back to work.” I always get bored on maternity leave. I'm on maternity leave.
Amanda: [laughs]
Rena: We have – thank god. Israel is an amazing – we have 14-weeks maternity leave – paid maternity leave.
Amanda: Wow.
Rena: Every maternity leave, I did different things. Like, I started a jewelry business. I started sewing scarves. I started crocheting, like, yarmulkes, kippahs. Like I get really bored. Like, I would just be like, “All I'm supposed to do is nurse the baby? Like, that's it?” Which is ridiculous because you know – I mean whatever. It's exhausting having children, but my mind is always working. And I'm always reading. And I've always been reading, you know. But I didn't really want to go back to work and just do more of the same. And I knew about – it's the only literary agency in Israel. It's also the premier one. Definitely, the only one in Jerusalem. And my husband's like, “Well, what do you want to do, like, if you want to go back to work?” And I was like, “I want to work at the Deborah Harris Agency.’ And he's like, “That's really specific.” [laughs]
Julia: [laughs]
Amanda: [laughs]
Rena: And I used to pass the agency when I took my kids to the dentist. It was in the same building. It's no longer in that building. And I would just like sigh.
Amanda: Aww.
Rena: And, one day, the door was open and I saw all the books. And I was like, “I want in,” you know. And, finally, one day, I just – my husband's like, “Well, you definitely shouldn't apply because, if you apply, they may take you. But, if you don't apply, you'll never know.” And I was like, “Shut up.” So, like, I finally just decided to write an email. I sent my resume. They weren't looking for anybody. I'd always scoured to make sure and always looked because I would have applied. And Deborah wrote me back, like, five minutes after I sent my email. And she was like, “Can you start tomorrow?”
Julia: Wow.
Amanda: Wow.
Rena: But that's because I had had, like, I guess, you know, 10 years of a resume of places I'd worked and people that she knew in Jerusalem and, you know, people who were in the book world and who were in journalism and in writing and, and that sort of thing. But, also, Israel just has a way of doing that because it's such a small country. Like, when you bring a certain skill to this country, there is a way to find a way to use it if you connect to the right person. And that was sort of what that was. And she also was like, “Why didn't you come here 10 years ago?” And I'm like, “I didn't think I could.” [laughs]
Julia: [laughs]
Amanda: [laughs]
Rena: And, so, that was kind of how I, I got to the agency. I find that it doesn't conflict, precisely, because of the maternity leave story because I get bored. And, if I was only an author, I would spend a lot of time playing solitaire, and starting jewelry businesses, and sewing scarves, and crocheting kippahs. In this way, I just kept busy in the right way. So, I, I keep busy on both sides of the coin. Sometimes, I write, and, sometimes, I read, and, sometimes, I edit, and, sometimes, I agent, you know. And it all gets into, like, a big mash of things. And I definitely think my agenting life takes over more than my writing life. And that's because I'm a really good procrastinator. And, so, like, there's always things I can procrastinate with, like, queries, and editing, and auctions. At this book, I actually took – there were two different weeks that I went to Highlights, which is like a – you know, a retreat center in Northern Pennsylvania, I think. I ended up, like, staffing a retreat there or whatever. And then, like, they, they said, “Would you like a week to write?” And I was like, “Yes, I would like a week to write.” And that actually was really good. And, so, I need to do more of that. Though this pandemic has sort of made that impossible. Spending a week writing in a cabin, which leaves me free to then do my agenting stuff without the pressure of like, “I have a book do. Oh, no. Good. I spent a week in a cabin and I did – I edited the book.” So, I don't know. I don't know what things look like moving forward, but a different varying combinations of that.
Julia: Very cool.
Amanda: That's like a much kind of bigger and grander version of what I do, which is clean when I'm procrastinating from work. And, at the end of the day, I do have a clean house but not necessarily all my, like, emails and spreadsheets done.
Rena: There's a famous quote and I forget who it's by, but it says, “Women who have clean houses do not have finished books.”
Amanda: Oh, no. I’m gonna rush [Inaudible 42:54].
Julia: Shout out. So true. No, but I absolutely feel the, “Oh, I'm going to pick up a thing to procrastinate with because, like as you can see in my background, I've just been picking up embroidery just – that's my nonstop. At the end of the day, I need something to do. Otherwise, I'll drive myself crazy.
Rena: Yeah.
Julia: So, I absolutely feel like, “Oh, I'm gonna accidentally start a scarf business.”
Rena: Yeah. So, now, my accidentally is to be channeled into I will accidentally read 100 query letters and find a new author I want to represent, which is a lot more productive.
Amanda: Not too bad.
Julia: Not bad.
Rena: And financially – usually, financially, you know, there's a financial recompense to that instead of just like making scarves and trying to sell them on Etsy.
Julia: Mhmm. Mhmm.
Amanda: Rena, thank you again for coming on the show. I have so many reading recommendations and things I'm excited to Google. So, can you just remind folks where they can pick up copies of your books or follow you online?
Rena: So, I'm most active on Twitter, which is just @RenaRossner, R-E-N-A-R-O-S-S-N-E-R. I'm also on Instagram. I just don't like – I'm not so photogenic. So, I'd like to take pictures of, like, Pablo, my dog, and food that I make, but, sometimes, a picture of me here and there. And I'm also on Facebook and whatever. But really Twitter's the best place to follow me. Beyond that, you can find information how to query me on the Deborah Harris Agency website. I also have my own website, www.ReenaRossner.com. And my book can be picked up wherever books are sold. I don't like recommending Amazon, but it is on there. There's this new bookshop.com thing. Or is it bookshop.org?
Julia: Yes, bookshop.org. We have one. We're going to definitely link you. Don't worry.
Rena: And, for people who don't live in the States, we usually buy our books from Book Depository, which has free shipping internationally though it is an Amazon company.
Julia: Mhmm.
Amanda: There's always compromises under capitalism. It happens.
Rena: Well, you can't be free international shipping.
Julia: And everyone can find links to those in the episode description of this episode.
Amanda: Amazing. Well, thank you again. Everybody, go check out Rena’s books. And, ultimately, remember.
Julia: Stay creepy.
Amanda: Stay cool.
Outro Music
Amanda: Spirits was created by Amanda McLoughlin, Julia Schifini, and Eric Schneider with music by Kevin MacLeod and visual design by Allyson Wakeman.
Julia: Keep up with all things creepy and cool by following us @SpiritsPodcast on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr. We also have all of our episode transcripts, guest appearances, and merch on our website as well as a form to send us your urban legends at spiritspodcast.com.
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Julia: Thank you so much for listening. Till next time.
Transcriptionist: Rachelle Rose Bacharo
Editor: Krizia Casil