Gail Springer's Blog

I’m reading Tirzah Firestones latest book, Wounds into Wisdom, and she has helped me to think more about the two main characters in my own book, Two Chambered Heart. As Dr. Firestone discusses, Diane suffers mental illness from her family’s unspoken histories. She mysteriously loses her parents as a child, and she inherits the trauma of her parents’ losses in the holocaust. Rihan also suffers trauma — she loses her mother to illness, and then watches her father killed by a warring enemy. Both women find healing thru their arts, thru their creative resilience and their willingness to love. Diane uncovers and finally speaks of her past’s secrets while Rihan finds a new accepting community.

Hi folks,
Let me hear from you if you’ve read Two Chambered Heart!
Meanwhile, I’m deep into final revisions for my next novella. The working title is Ahu visits the Gods, but I’m hoping to create a title that has more overall connection to the book. Yes, the girl Ahu does visit the gods, but that is only the start of the story, which takes place in what is today Southern Turkey or Anatolya. The year is 8000BC!! Two orphaned families from the same clan become separated when their Fertile Crescent village is attacked by invading warriors, forcing them to flee across the wilderness. As refugees they face and overcome hardships and their own fears on the journey to find a new home.

This historical fiction will probably be classified as a YA novella, but my manuscript has already excited adult readers too. And I’m so excited to see it in print and hear from readers.

You can search the Neolithic ruins of Gobekli Tepe, to find out more about Ahu’s temple.

There are modern and ancient Jewish themes in this historical fiction/fantasy set in two different times: New London Connecticut in 2017, and Mesopotamia in 250CE. Diane is an artist and professor at Connecticut College, tortured by recurring visions and the mystery of her lost family; Rihan is a young fresco artist living high above the Euphrates River in the Hebrew quarter of the doomed city of Dura Europa.

The artistic influence of the Roman occupiers is evident in the spectacular frescos/temperas that covered the walls in the Dura Synagogue. Recent aerial photography reveals large bomb craters in the middle of Dura. evidence that the paintings have been completely destroyed seventeen centuries later by ISIS.

But there remain beautiful digital images of those stunning wall frescos. Just search Dura Europa Synagogue frescos for an eyeful.

After decades of performing with other musicians, collaborating with other theatre professionals, and teaching, I am navigating a strange new world as a writer. The solitude of writing is striking, and on my own I recognize the loneliness of sacrifice. But it's also a rich source of ideas, and most days I love following my imagination, taking deep dives into my research, and losing time in the arduous process of writing and rewriting, revising again and again.

When I fall so far down into myself that I come face to face with my personal demons, I invite them to collaborate with me, and if they accept, the unexpected comes to me. Now that's Gratitude and Joy .

Thanks for reading my novella. I have two more in revisions, completely different from Two Chambered Heart. I'll blog about them next time.