Rebecca Klempner's Blog

Last week, I was shocked to learn that Shirley Waisman and I won a Golden Duck Notable award from Core for HOW TO WELCOME AN ALIEN! It’s for excellence in sci-fi kidlit. Before I learned I’d won it, I had no idea this award even existed, but it gives me particular pleasure because while the book got some attention as a Jewish book, I think of it as a sci-fi book, as well.

Apparently, Core is the national association that advances the profession of librarians and information providers in centr...

It’s now a month and a half since the release of HOW TO WELCOME AN ALIEN, and it’s a new year, too! I thought I should post a few more of the reviews the book has gotten, even if I don’t have *that* much to say for myself otherwise (still writing, still querying, still trying to sell books, still washing lots of dishes and dealing with loads of laundry).

I feel like I have to pre-empt the following with a “Ptui, ptui, ptui—bli ayin hara!” qualifier.

Prepping for the release of HOW TO WELCOME AN ALIEN, my latest book, was a lot of work. The publisher and I brainstormed who to send ARCs to, we secured a bunch of reviews and interviews, and I posted almost daily to try to drum up sales.

For the first couple week, sales were pretty good. Not fa...

Lots of exciting stuff happening around the release of my next book, HOW TO WELCOME AN ALIEN!

I was interviewed—twice! The first interview was by the always-lovely Barbara Bietz for Jewish Books for Kinds…and more!. You can find that interview here. And the one with Kylie Ora Lobell appeared in the Jewish Journal last week. You can read that one here.

Dara Horn appeared this week on one of my favorite podcasts, 18Forty. If you haven’t heard of her till now, Horn is an extraordinary Jewish author, journalist, and thought leader. She’s written several (often award-winning) novels and a non-fiction book (also award-winning), and I’m a huge fan. Since 18Forty’s theme this month is BOOKS! BOOKS! BOOKS!, Horn is the perfect guest for Rabbi Bashevkin to invite onto the podcast.

Her conversation with Rabbi Bashevkin is fantastic. (You can listen ...

Reviews in Kirkus can greatly influence people’s interest in a new title, particularly the interest of bookstore managers and librarians. Therefore, I was greatly relieved to see a postive review for HOW TO WELCOME AN ALIEN up on their site. If you want to read the review in full, you can find it here.

There was another supposed alien sighting in Vegas a couple weeks back, so maybe that will increase sales, too. (My best friend called it an ex...

With just a couple months till publication, I’m feeling a bit anxious about the release of How To Welcome an Alien. But when I opened up Twitter today, I felt a little more confident.

The blog Bookishly Jewish posted a review (which you can find here), and it’s a positive one. I’ve heard there are more reviews coming. And hopefully all these combined will boost presale orders.

Shortly before Passover hit (I hope everyone had a good one) I had the pleasure of being interviewed by long-time colleague and friend, Merri Ukraincik. Her new Substack newsletter, Days of Rest, has been running for a couple months now, and she chose me as her first interviewee for an ongoing section called, “The Creative Pause.” Merri—who is, like me, an Orthodox Jew—wants to know how other frum artists negotiate the requires respite from creation on Shabbat. We talked about ideas which pop up...

I’m very excited to announce that my upcoming project with Kalaniot Books is now available for preorders! HOW TO WELCOME AN ALIEN will IY”H be published this fall, but preorders are available now on Amazon. It’s illustrated by Shirley Waisman and perfect for kids aged 4 – 7.

This picture book would never have happened without my writing group friends: Ann Koffsky, Devorah Talia Gordon, Linda E. Marshall, Fredd...

I’ve been spending a lot of time editing lately (don’t worry, I’m still writing, although not as much as I’d like). Most of this work has been coming from a particular Haredi publisher — it’s fun, it’s challenging, and I’m learning a lot. I started off doing copyediting, but periodically, the acquisitions editor asks me to handle a developmental editing project.