Ann S. Epstein Writer

Play’s the Thing

“When you’re an adult watching a kid playing with a little toy, you just think that kid’s doing that and there’s nothing else to it. But from the kid’s perspective, that toy is playing with them. It’s interactive” (Lynda Barry, interviewed by David Marchese in “A Genius Cartoonist Believes Child’s Play Is Anything But Frivolous,” The New York Times, September 02, 2022). As a writer, as well as a developmental psychologist, I wholeheartedly concur. Creative writing is a form of play. The story is a toy and the writer must be open to playing with it. Psychologist Jean Piaget said, “Play is the work of childhood” and Mr. Rogers described play as serious work. Creative play should also be the work of adulthood.

Why writers write: “If a nation loses its storytellers, it loses its childhood.” – Peter Handke

Survivor Story: Bullets and Bread

“My mother and 5,000 others worked 12-hour shifts, night or day, seven days a week, making bullet casings. They were fed 600 calories a day. A Polish worker who went home at night sometimes smuggled in flour which my mother, risking her life, used to bake bread on the hot machinery. That extra bread was the difference between life and death.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

Jewish and non-Jewish workers made bullets for the German army

Berlin, 1937. Jewish newlyweds flee Germany for Brooklyn on the eve of the Nazi slaughter

Me and Elizabeth Strout

Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout is due out on September 20, 2022, the same day that my new book One Person’s Loss will be published. Strout’s previous novel, Oh, William! was released on October 19, 2021, the same day as my last book, The Great Stork Derby! A recent New York Times “What to Read” profile says that the 66-year-old Strout has hit her stride and is on a roll. Ditto the 75-year-old Ann S. Epstein!

Novelist Ann S. Epstein

Survivor Story: Passing

“We had little to eat. Since I was blonde with a light complexion, I could pass as a non-Jewish Pole and smuggle food to my family in the ghetto. The police often stopped me and confiscated the food I was carrying. Once, a guard tried to force me to admit I was Jewish and ordered a German Shepherd to attack me. Even when the dog bit off pieces of my flesh, I insisted I wasn’t Jewish. I still bear the scars.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

German guard dogs viciously attacked Jews while SS officers laughed

Survivor Story: Our Synagogue Was Their Stable

“Within two days of the 1941 invasion of Poland, Germans were in my hometown, using the synagogue as a stable, destroying Jewish symbols, and demanding that Jews be identified by a Star of David. We were moved by peasant cart to the Mlawa ghetto, finding the place empty because previous inhabitants had all been transferred to Auschwitz.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.

Nazis and their sympathizers desecrated Jewish synagogues, homes, and businesses

Berlin, 1937. Jewish newlyweds flee Germany for Brooklyn before the Nazi slaughter begins

Learn History Through Fiction: Wizard of Oz Released 83 Years Ago Today

The Wizard of Oz officially opened 83 years ago today, on August 25, 1939. MGM previewed the movie in Wisconsin two weeks earlier to test its popularity in the Midwest. Viewers were wowed by Technicolor, a film first. Still, production was marred by mishaps and it was a decade before MGM recouped its $3 million investment. Read more about the making of The Wizard of Oz and its “big” and “little” stars in A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve., a fictional biography of the actor who played the Munchkin Coroner (see NOVELS).

The Wizard of Oz released August 25, 1939

A Brain. A Heart. The Nerve. (Alternative Book Press) by Ann S. Epstein

Introducing “Survivor Stories”

My novel One Person’s Loss (coming September 2022) is about German Jewish newlyweds sent to Brooklyn on the eve of the Nazi slaughter, admonished by their parents to have children to “save our people.” A new a set of posts, “Survivor Stories,” will share the tales of real people who lived through the Holocaust and their memories of the millions who didn’t. The images are informative without being voyeuristic or degrading. Learn more at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Read about the book in NOVELS.

“Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.” – Elie Wiesel, *Night*

Jewish newlyweds flee Berlin for Brooklyn on the eve of the Nazi slaughter

Bad Dad Tales: Retiring

After 50 “Bad Dad Tales” (all archived here), I am retiring the series that introduced readers to The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. I will soon launch a new series, “Survivor Stories,” in honor of my upcoming book, One Person’s Loss, which will be released in September 2022, a World War II era narrative about Holocaust survivors torn between relief and guilt. Read about both publications and my other books, all available in print and electronic formats, in NOVELS.

Toronto, 1926: A husband pressures his wife to have babies for a large cash prize

Berlin, 1937: Jewish newlyweds Petra and Erich flee Germany for Brooklyn before the Nazi slaughter begins

Wonder What Defines an “Indie Press?”

According to LitNuts, an online book promotion service that only features publications by indie presses, “A book by an indie author (many of whom have created their own imprint) is definitely an indie book. So are books from the small, university, and micro presses competing for attention with the Big Five corporate publishers and their ~250 imprints. (The Big Five are HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, and Macmillan. They may be about to become the Big Four, pending the outcome of the antitrust suit to block the merger of Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster.) The Big Five have an 80%+ market share in the United States. That translates into 80%+ of shelf space in bookstores and 80%+ of online book real estate, as well.”

My novels are all published by indie presses (Vine Leaves Press and Alternative Book Press). When you buy books from indie presses and encourage others to do the same, you support their efforts to publish a wider variety of voices than those represented by large commercial presses. Thank you for investing in this vital share of the literary and publishing world!

LitNuts promotes publications by indie presses as a counterpoint to the Big Five

Why writers write: “Language is the oldest and most human thing about us. And, of course, writers are working in language.” – Margaret Atwood

Bad Dad Tale: A Great Lady Nevertheless

Eleanor Roosevelt’s father Elliott, younger brother of President Theodore Roosevelt, inherited a fortune and squandered it on a rich and idle life. A heavy drinker, he was exiled to Virginia and rarely visited his daughter. She was jealous of the servant girl with whom he fathered a son. Elliott died of a seizure days after jumping out a window. The future First Lady never got over his loss but developed a compassion that benefitted the nation and the world. For the story of another bad dad, read The Great Stork Derby, based on an actual contest in which a husband pressures his wife to have babies for cash and, fifty years later, learns the true value of fatherhood. Read more about the book in NOVELS.