Author, editor, attempter of this thing called life. Social anxiety warrior. Re-Connections, a collection of short stories, published with Ocelot Press, 15/10/2025.
As launch day for Social Anxiety Revealed draws close, activity surrounding the book is increasing.
My other half and I made this video:
And the blog tour has begun. So far there is only one post, but that is about to change!
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2 August, 2017 |
Book Review: The Mill River Recluse |
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To all my Facebook friends with a birthday in August (17 by my count!), I wish you a wonderful day of sweet and simple pleasure.
לכל חבריי בפייסבוק עם יום הולדת באוגוסט, אני מאחלת לכם יום נפלא של הנאה מתוקה ופשוטה. א
In my youth, my August birthday was a blessing and a curse.
I enjoyed the fact that I was always on holiday from school on this special day. I was free to spend the day enjoying myself, even if there weren’t many special things to do.
But that also meant that everyone else was on holiday and not around to celebrate with me. I was often away, too, on that day.
And, with a birthday at the end of August, I was always the youngest in the class – a fact that held great significance when we were young and was not advantageous.
Now, it’s all good. Summer, freedom, almost always sunshine. And the fact that I’m the youngest of all my old school friends doesn’t bother me one bit!
From this year, I’ll be sharing August with my baby: Social Anxiety Revealed, published on August 22, just three days before my birthday.
This post is about what happened to me this past weekend. It’s also about much more than that.
We were visited by a lovely Canadian couple. They stayed with us, ate and talked. We showed them some of the sites of Jerusalem: the Old City market, the Western Wall, Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, Machane Yehuda market, the city centre and other neighbourhoods. The visit ended with an impressive light show projected onto the city walls. Then they left us to visit other parts of the country before returning home to Canada. The end?
Not at all, because I left out the beginning of this story. Two eleven-year-old girls became friends at school out of convenience, and somehow that friendship grew to include visits outside school. One of those girls was considerably less popular than the other and so glad of the friendship that provided protection from the harsh treatment she’d endured from other girls.
That friendship ended without warning just a year after it began. The popular girl’s mother secretly took her daughter off to live in Canada. The other girl was left to flounder, suddenly vulnerable and exposed to bullying from all directions.
The girl who remained was me. The one who left was the woman who came to stay last weekend, over fifty-one years later. We met briefly four years ago, but this was the first chance we had to talk together.
‘Weird’ was a feeling we both agreed on. I could be talking to her as friends do, when I’d suddenly remember she was that twelve-year-old girl who deserted me. And while I knew that what happened back then was in no way her fault, I appreciated her apologies. Her leaving led to six difficult years that determined the person I was to become, and none of it was her fault.
I’m so glad we met up again. And I might even have a chance to visit Canada.
Many thanks to all those who offered suggestions for a slogan to accompany the launch of my new book: Social Anxiety Revealed.
I decided I wasn’t the best person to judge this contest. I think when you don’t live in a country where English is spoken, sometimes words don’t ring in quite the same way, and slogans are all about that tinkling in the ears.
So I chose a judge – Jean Davison. Jean probably caught social anxiety herself as a teenager, although she wasn’t diagnosed with it (unsurprisingly, as social anxiety wasn’t known in those days). Instead, she was diagnosed with something she didn’t have, as told in her memoir, The Dark Threads. Thank you, Jean.
The winner of the competition is Catherine Kullmann with the slogan:
We need to talk about Social Anxiety
Jean felt (and I agree) that this slogan gets the message across most clearly.
Congratulations, Catherine! I’ll be catapulting a signed copy of Neither Here Nor There over to you as soon as I know where to direct it.
Many thanks to all those who entered my slogan competition. The result will be announced shortly.
In the meantime, you’re invited to the online launch party for Social Anxiety Revealed on Facebook on August 22. All are welcome and you don’t have to bring anything – not even social anxiety!
There will be songs, videos, interesting information, competitions and guest appearances.
See you there in 37 days!
I need a slogan.
Update for clarification. The slogan is supposed to say: you need to know about social anxiety.
I tried using a free slogan maker. It asked for a word and I gave it social-anxiety. It came back with slogans – lots of them. Slogans like these:
I thought about these. For a second or two. Then I decided…
I still need a slogan. Something that says that social anxiety is the next big thing. That everyone needs to know about social anxiety. That you should be on the social anxiety bandwagon, because you don’t want to get left behind. That soon only ignorant people won’t know what social anxiety is. That sort of thing.
That’s the competition. The person who thinks up the best slogan will win a signed copy of my romance with a difference, Neither Here Nor There. If the winner has read that book, I’ll think of a different prize.
Where should you send your competition entries? Write them here in the comments or send them privately, if you prefer, using the Contact me button at the top. I’ll announce the winner here, unless they don’t want to be announced, and will use the winning slogan for marketing my forthcoming book: Social Anxiety Revealed.
This is such an interesting question: If we were all forced to wear a warning label, what would yours say?
I think in the past mine would have said:
Warning: BORING AND HESITANT
Now it would say:
Warning: APPEARS HESITANT AND BORING AT FIRST, BUT ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS AND YOU WILL BE SURPRISED
What’s your warning label?
I’m delighted to be able to reveal the cover of my non-fiction book, Social Anxiety Revealed, which is to be published by Crooked Cat Books on August 22.
Here’s the cover:
I’m very excited that this is going to happen, and in only 48 days!
In the meantime, if you want to read more about social anxiety, please visit my other (new) blog, which is here.
What’s in the book?
Har Herzl (Mount Herzl) has been Israel’s official national cemetery since 1951. It is the final resting place of presidents, prime ministers and other leaders. It is also a military cemetery for many soldiers who gave their lives for the country.
I’ve visited Har Herzl many times over the past forty years, but never on a guided tour, and there were many things I didn’t know about it. So when I saw a request by Tali Tarlow for “test drivers” of this chapter of the book she’s been writing, I jumped at the chance. Tali is well known for her fun and informative scavenger hunts. I’ve been on three of them, all in Jerusalem: the Old City, Nachlaot and Yemin Moshe.
“We know how to do memorials,” said Erika, who joined me on Friday for the visit. It’s true. Unfortunately, this small, young country has had plenty of experience. And designers have created some innovative symbols. As well as the graves I mentioned above, we saw the memorials for passengers and crews of sunken ships and submarines, and for Ethiopian Jews who died trying to reach the Land of Israel. In Tali’s chapter, we read sad and uplifting stories, knowing that without the people buried in this place, we wouldn’t be living here.
At the top of a hill, we saw the tomb of Benjamin Ze’ev (Theodor) Herzl, the visionary of the State of Israel, after whom the place is named.
Har Herzl is also a lovely park, well laid out with trees, flowers and grass.
Although we enjoyed our morning on the mountain, Erika and I decided that next time we meet, it will be at a happier location.
Sorry about the recent quiet from within the walls. I’ve been editing and writing and thinking about a new cover and…
But I couldn’t let yesterday’s double anniversary go unnoticed.
Three years ago, my first novel, NEITHER HERE NOR THERE, was published by Crooked Cat. Seven years ago, my metastory, called NO MIDDLE, was published online. Here it is:
His eyes lit up. “You’ve made soup. And strawberries. Mmm. What’s the main course?”
“Sorry, I didn’t get round to making a main course.”
“No main course? You wouldn’t write a story like that, with a beginning and an end but no middle.”
When they finally broke in, the smell drew them to the kitchen. On the table, beside two empty soup bowls, lay two dishes of rotting strawberries.
***
The novel is here.
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