Author talk with Tova Mirvis and Marilyn Simon Rothstein to benefit Youth Aliyah

Interview by Carol Goodman Kaufman / Special to the BJV

LEE – In advance of her appearance at Berkshire Hills Hadassah’s “Books in the Berkshires” event on Sunday, June 14 at 11 a.m., the Berkshire Jewish Voice had the opportunity to speak with bestselling author Marilyn Simon Rothstein. She is the bestselling author of four novels: Who Loves You Best, Crazy to Leave You, Husbands and Other Sharp Objects, and Lift and Separate, winner of the Star Award presented by the Women’s Fiction Writers Association for Outstanding Debut. 

Also appearing will be novelist Tova Mirvis, author of the memoir The Book of Separation, as well as four novels: We Would Never, Visible City, The Outside World, and The Ladies Auxiliary, which was a national bestseller. The authors will be in conversation with Dr. Barbara Viniar (author of the novel Little Bird).

This event is a fundraiser for Hadassah’s Youth Aliyah.

For more information about this event, email [email protected] or visit https://events.hadassah.org/BHBooks. Register by May 15 to receive a free copy of the authors’ most recent books. Location of this event will be sent to you after registration. RSVP no later than June 4 – no walk-ins.

The BJV Interview: Marilyn Simon Rothstein

You earned your degree in journalism before working at Seventeen Magazine, then you ran an award-winning advertising agency for more than 25 years. When did you start writing fiction?

I was 17 years old, had always written in school, always knew I wanted to be a writer. I had no idea about what that involved, but my family read newspapers ferociously. We would get three papers a day, so somewhere in my brain it must’ve clicked. It was something called journalism that you could make a living at and not have to sit.

It was in the 70s when I took a class thinking I was going to write a book with one of my professors at NYU. So, I started this book about three kids at NYU. He took it to his agent. His agent was interested and told me to keep going. I did keep going, but the answer was no.

I graduated from NYU and I still wanted to write books but now I had a job. I started taking courses, writers’ workshops everywhere. Then I got my master’s degree, but I don’t think I ever realized how to get a book published, which is harder than writing the book.

I’d been in advertising all this time, and I just knew I wanted to write a book. I knew that if I stayed in the advertising business it wasn’t going to happen. I gave up the day job and made that decision to write.

I didn’t start writing seriously as a novelist until my kids were out of the house, and I spent about ten years writing my first book. I went to all these workshops to learn about the business of how to get published. The result was Lift and Separate.

Do you see any similarities between copywriting and fiction?

Because I was writing advertising, I never thought about how novelists had to market themselves. It’s awful, isn’t it? The hardest part of all of it is not the art and the craft of it. It’s the business end.

What’s your workday like? Do you outline? Do you have a word count that you shoot for every day?

I am very unorganized. I’m a morning person so I write as long as I can. This sounds horrible, but I have no structure. I don’t outline. I think of things, like just now I was walking and I started thinking about something I’m working on now, and it came to me. I put it down, not well written, but just so it’s in my head. And it can sit in the back of my head for two weeks. When I sit down and I get on a roll, I could go for a long, long period.

That’s my outline.

You tackle serious issues with humor. Have you always been funny? How did you develop your distinctive voice?

I think it goes back to my childhood. When we were sitting around the kitchen table in Queens talking, if you could be funny while you were explaining something or telling what happened at school or making fun of a relative, you got attention because everybody was laughing.

As for my voice, my friends can hear me talking in the book even though 90 percent of the book is fiction. It’s as if they’re sitting across from me. I want to use my voice, and no matter what the occasion, even a sad occasion, humor can help you get through the worst.

What happened to that first book that you were writing in college with the professor?

Occasionally I take it out and think wouldn’t be cool to do this, but I’d have to set myself back in time because the book takes place in 1971 in a dorm room. Who knows? Maybe one day it’ll show up like a flashback.

What are you working on now?

I am not sure exactly where it’s going. It’s humorous and it’s a story about the relationships between women or sisters, but that’s all I can really tell you. These are two things that really interest me, so that’s the way I’m going.

I look forward to hearing you on June 14!