Episode description

Episode 441 - Jennifer Lang - Places We Left Behind, commitment and compromise, faith and family

An American-French-Israeli hybrid, I write about identity, language, home. While raising kids in the San Francisco Bay Area at the dawning of the internet, I worked as copy editor/editor/content writer for BabyCenter, PlanetRx, and many other now obsolete .coms. But I dreamed of seeing my name on paper, in print, eventually writing for Parenting, Parents, Natural Solutions, Scholastic, Woman’s Day, Real Simple. Then, in the early 2000s, something else caught my eye: the back-page essays. 

Who were these first-person voices and how did they tell such moving stories? Curious and on the opposite coast, I enrolled in a creative nonfiction class: one, which led to another, and then another, finally culminating in my MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Thank you so much to each of my mentors for teaching me something different and dear, for bolstering me to walk this path as writer.

When American-born Jennifer falls in love with French-born Philippe during the First Intifada in Israel, she understands their relationship isn’t perfect. Both 23, both Jewish, they lead very different lives: she’s a secular tourist, he’s an observant immigrant. Despite their opposing outlooks on two fundamental issues—country and religion—they are determined to make it work. For the next 20 years, they root and uproot their growing family, each longing for a singular place to call home. In Places We Left Behind, Jennifer puts her marriage under a microscope, examining commitment and compromise, faith and family while moving between prose and poetry, playing with language and form, daring the reader to read between the lines.

Distributed through Ingram, the book is available on Vine Leaves Press store, Amazon, Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, and more.

In a book club? Invite her to your next event.

israelwriterstudio.com

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