Tiferet Talk

Lesléa Newman is the author of 70 books for readers of all ages, including A Letter to Harvey Milk; October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard; I Carry My Mother; The Boy Who Cried Fabulous; Ketzel, the Cat Who Composed; and Heather Has Two Mommies. Lesléa just released a new book of poetry titled Lovely. She has received many literary awards, including creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Massachusetts Artists Foundation, two American Library Association Stonewall Honors, Massachusetts Book Award, Association of Jewish Libraries Sydney Taylor Award, Highlights for Children Fiction Writing Award, a Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fiction Writing grant, James Baldwin Award for Cultural Achievement, Cat Writer's Association Muse Medallion, and the Dog Writers Association of America's Maxwell Medallion. Nine of her books have been Lambda Literary Award Finalists. Ms. Newman is a popular guest lecturer, and has spoken at numerous college campuses including Harvard University, Yale University, University of Oregon, Bryn Mawr College, Smith College and the University of Judaism. From 2008-2010 she served as the Poet Laureate of Northampton, MA. She is currently a faculty mentor at Spalding University's brief residency MFA in Writing program. Recently published books include the poetry collection I Carry My Mother (Golden Crown Literary Society Award and Massachusetts Center for the Book "Must Read" title); picture book Here Is The World: A Year of Jewish Holidays (Sydney Taylor Notable); and Ketzel, The Cat Who Composed (Massachusetts Book Award, Sydney Taylor Award, and Cat Writers Association Best "Litter-ary" Award). Forthcoming titles include two picture books, Sparkle Boy (Lee and Low, 2017) and Gittel's Journey: An Ellis Island Story (Abrams, 2018).

Tiferet Talk host Gayle Brandeis and Tiferet Journal are most honored and pleased to have as our esteemed guest, award winning writer and stage & film actor, Martin Moran. Martin Moran attended Stanford University and lives in New York City where he makes his living as an actor and writer He is the author of the best-selling books "All the Rage: A Quest" and "The Tricky Part". His writing has also appeared in The New York Times, Ploughshares and Pushcart Prize. He was awarded a fellowship at The MacDowell Colony and is a recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant for Creative Non-fiction. Moran wrote the Book and Lyrics for the 2012 “Inner Voices” solo musical, Borrowed Dust, with composer Joseph Thalken. He is currently working on his next book, Analphabet. As an actor, he most recently completed the Off Broadway run of his one-man play, All The Rage, which received the 2013 Lucille Lortel Award and Outer Critics Circle Nomination for Outstanding Solo Show. He received an OBIE and two Drama Desk Nominations for his 2004 solo play, The Tricky Part, based upon his memoir of the same title. The Tricky Part memoir won the 2005 Lambda Non-Fiction Prize and Barnes and Noble Discover Award. He has also presented his solo work internationally in Poland, South Africa and Canada. Moran's film and television work includes guest appearances on The Newsroom; The Big C; Possible Side Affects; Private Parts; Law & Order; Law & Order Criminal Intent; Dellaventura and Mary and Rhoda. For more information about our guest, Martin Moran, please visit: http://www.alltherageplay.com/ These interviews are proudly brought to you by Tiferet Journal: Promoting Tolerance through Literature & Art. http://tiferetjournal.com/

Tiferet Journal, and our Tiferet Talk Interviews host Gayle Brandeis, are most honored and pleased to have as our guest, award winning poet, writer, editor and teacher, Khadijah Queen. Khadijah Queen is the author of five books, most recently I'm So Fine: A List of Famous Men & What I Had On (YesYes Books 2017). Earlier poetry collections include Conduit (Akashic / Black Goat 2008), Black Peculiar (Noemi Press 2011) and Fearful Beloved (Argos Books 2015). Her verse play Non-Sequitur (Litmus Press 2015) won the Leslie Scalapino Award for Innovative Women's Performance Writing. The prize included a full staged production of the play at Theaterlab NYC from December 10 - 20, 2015 by Fiona Templeton's The Relationship theater company. Queen's individual poems and prose appear in Fence, Tin House, Buzzfeed, Gulf Coast, Poor Claudia, The Offing, jubilat, Memoir, Tupelo Quarterly, Best American Nonrequired Reading, DIAGRAM, The Volta Book of Poets, LitHub, The Force of What's Possible and widely elsewhere. Reviews of her work can be found in BOMB Magazine, SCOUT, Publishers Weekly, Los Angeles Review, Open Letters Monthly, The Volta, Kenyon Review, Boston Review, and other publications. She serves as core faculty in poetry and playwriting for the new Mile-High MFA in creative writing at Regis University, and is raising a teenager. For more information about our guest, Khadijah Queen, please visit: http://www.khadijahqueen.com/ These interviews are proudly brought to you by Tiferet Journal: Promoting Tolerance through Literature & Art. http://tiferetjournal.com/

Please join Tiferet Journal, and Tiferet Talk Interviews host Gayle Brandeis on June 28 at 6:30pm EST for an interview with writer, author, lecturer, interviewer and Editor-in-Chief at Author Magazine, William (Bill) Kenower. Mr. Kenower is the author of several highly reviewed books; Write Within Yourself: An Author's Companion and his latest book Fearless Writing: How to Create Boldly and Write with Confidence. He also hosts a weekly online radio program called Author2Author where he interviews writers on the intersections of writing and life. Some of his exceptional past guests include William Gibson, Richard Bach, David Rocklin, Tami Hoag, and Holly Robinson. Bill Kenower's articles have been published in The New York Times and Edible Seattle, and he has been a featured blogger for the Huffington Post. Mr. Kenower is also the Editor-in-Chief of Author Magazine where he oversees the daily tasks of managing a premiere publication. Bill also writes a popular essay blog there and conducts in-person video interviews with a wide range of literary luminaries. For more information about our guest, William Kenower, please visit:http://www.williamkenower.com/ These interviews are proudly brought to you by Tiferet Journal: Promoting Tolerance through Literature & Art. http://tiferetjournal.com/

Tiferet Journal, and our Tiferet Talk Interviews host Gayle Brandeis, are most honored and pleased to have award winning novelist Hilma Wolitzer as our esteemed guest on May 17th at 6:30pm EST.   Hilma Wolitzer is an American novelist who has received honors and fellowships from Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and the American Academy of Arts & Letters. Her novels include Ending, In the Flesh, The Doctor's Daughter, and Hearts. Her 14th book, An Available Man, was published in 2012. She has taught at the Iowa Writer's Workshop, Columbia University, New York University, and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. Wolitzer has two daughters, Meg who is a novelist, and Nancy, who is a freelance editor and visual artist. She lives in Manhattan with her husband who is a Psychologist. For more information about our guest, please visit: http://www.hilmawolitzer.com/index.htm Please consider subscribing to TIFERET JOURNAL where you will receive 1 print and 3 digital issues per year—each beautifully designed and filled with highly-crafted, quality stories, excellent essays, moving poetry, enlightening interviews with well known authors and thinkers, and beautiful art from painters and photographers around the world, which all share our cross-cultural humanity. http://tiferetjournal.com/subscribe/

Tiferet Journal, and our Tiferet Talk Interviews host Gayle Brandeis are most honored and grateful to have the current U.S. Poet Laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera, as our esteemed guest. Juan Felipe Herrera is the author of 28 books of poetry, YA novels, and collections for children including: “Half the World in Light: New and Selected Poems" (2008), winner of National Book Critics Circle Award and the International Latino Book Award. His other honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, two Latino Hall of Fame Poetry Awards, and a PEN / Beyond Margins Award. Elected a Chancellor for the Academy of American Poets in 2011, Herrera served as the Poet Laureate of California from 2012-2015. In 2016, he was awarded the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement at the 36th L.A. Times Book Prizes. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington appointed Juan Felipe Herrera as the Library’s 21st Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry on June 10, 2015. Mr. Felipe Herrera poetry collections include, 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross the Border: Undocuments 1971-2007, Half of the World in Light: New and Selected Poems (2008), and Border-Crosser with a Lamborghini Dream (1999).  He has also written several children’s books such as, "The Upside Down Boy," "Calling the Doves" and "Super Cilantro Girl" that have been adapted into a play by the LightBox Theatre Company. “Calling the Doves” won the Ezra Jack Keats Book Award in 1997. To find out more about our guest, current U.S. Poet Laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera, please visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Felipe_Herrera    

Welcome back to Tiferet Talk. We start off the New Year with our new host, Gayle Brandeis! Please join us on February 22nd at 6:30pm EST. 5:30pm CST and 3:30pm PDT as we speak with poet and creative nonfiction writer, Molly Peacock. Molly Peacock is the author of The Analyst (W. W. Norton & Company; 2017) a poetry collection on the relationship between therapist and patient after the therapist survives a brain hemorrhage. Peacock uses a variety of forms from sonnet and villanelle to free verse to explore this new relationship. Author of several books of poetry, Peacock has also written biography, The Paper Garden: An Artist Begins Her Life’s Work at 72, a memoir, Paradise, Piece by Piece, short fiction, Alphabetique: 26 Characteristic Fictions, and the craft book, How To Read a Poem & Start a Poetry Circle. She is also the editor of a collection of creative non-fiction, The Private I: Privacy in a Public World, and the co-editor of Poetry in Motion: One Hundred Poems from the Subways and Buses. She performed The Shimmering Verge, a one-woman staged monologue in poems, in theaters throughout North America. Molly Peacock is former Poet-in-Residence at the American Poets’ Corner and President Emerita of the Poetry Society of America. For ten years, Peacock conducted quarterly poetry circles on Wisconsin Public Radio. She has received awards and fellowships from Danforth Foundation, Ingram Merrill Foundation, Woodrow Wilson Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and New York State Council on the Arts, amongst other honors, and is based in Toronto and New York. For more information on Molly Peacock, and to purchase her books, please visit: http://www.mollypeacock.org/

Jacqueline Sheehan, Ph.D., is a New York Times Bestselling author. She is also a psychologist. A New Englander through and through, she spent twenty years living far from home in Oregon, California, and New Mexico doing a variety of things, including house painting, photography, freelance journalism, clerking in a health food store, and directing a traveling troupe of high school puppeteers. Her novels include, The Comet’s Tale a novel about Sojourner Truth, Lost & Found, Now & Then, and Picture This. Her newest book, The Center of the World, will be published in January 2016 by Kensington. She writes NPR commentaries, travel articles, short stories, and essays including the New York Times column, Modern Love. She edited the anthology, Women Writing in Prison. Jacqueline has been awarded residencies at Hawthornden Castle in Scotland and Jentel Arts Colony in Wyoming. She teaches workshops at Grub Street in Boston and Writers in Progress in Florence, Massachusetts. She teaches writing workshops in Jamaica, Guatemala, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. To find out more about our guest, please visit: www.jacquelinesheehan.com  

Please Join Donna Baier Stein and Tiferet Journal on Wednesday, December 9th @ 7PM EST for an interview with Ronna Wineberg. Ronna Wineberg is the author of On Bittersweet Place, her first novel, and a debut collection, Second Language, which won the New Rivers Press Many Voices Project Literary Competition, and was the runner-up for the 2006 Reform Judaism Prize for Jewish Fiction. Her stories have appeared in American Way, Colorado Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, South Dakota Review and elsewhere, and been broadcast on National Public Radio. She is the recipient of a scholarship in fiction to the Bread Loaf Writers Conference and residencies to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the Ragdale Foundation. She has been awarded a fellowship in fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is the founding fiction editor of the Bellevue Literary Review, and lives in New York.   For more information on Ronna Wineberg please visit: http://www.ronnawineberg.com   The Tiferet Journal is most pleased to also offer to you our multiple, award winning and recently released, “Tiferet Talk Interviews” book. This book includes 12 more exceptional interviews from Julia Cameron, Edward Hirsch, Jude Rittenhouse, Marc Allen, Arielle Ford, Robert Pinsky, Dr. Bernie Siegel, Robin Rice, Jeffrey Davis, Floyd Skloot, Anthony Lawlor, and Lois P. Jones. It can be purchased in both print and Kindle formats at this link on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/bu8m2zs

Please join Donna Baier Stein and Tiferet Journal on Wednesday, November 18th @ 7PM EST for a conversation with Dani Antman. Dani Antman is a master energy healer with over 25 years experience working with the human energy field. She is a graduate of the Barbara Brennan School of Healing, The Non-Dual School of Healing and has a certification in Somatic Experiencing, to work with PTSD and Trauma.  Dani is a student and teacher of Kabbalah and an Interfaith Minister. She has led workshops at Esalen and La Casa de Maria, and is currently on the staff of The Lionheart Institute for Transpersonal Energy Healing.  She is currently writing her first book, titled: Wired for God: Adventures of a Jewish Yogi For more info about Dani:www.daniantman.com 2-FOR-1 HOLIDAY SALE! You and a friend or family member can each enjoy a full year's subscription to Tiferet Journal for the price of one! Subscribe Today! The Tiferet Journal is most pleased to also offer to you our multiple, award winning and recently released, “Tiferet Talk Interviews” book. This book includes 12 more exceptional interviews from Julia Cameron, Edward Hirsch, Jude Rittenhouse, Marc Allen, Arielle Ford, Robert Pinsky, Dr. Bernie Siegel, Robin Rice, Jeffrey Davis, Floyd Skloot, Anthony Lawlor, and Lois P. Jones. It can be purchased in both print and Kindle formats at this link on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/bu8m2zs

Please join Donna Baier Stein and Tiferet Journal on October 28th @ 7PM EST for a conversation with Betsy Woodman. Betsy Woodman is the author of Jana Bibi’s Excellent Fortunes, Love Potion Number 10: A Jana Bibi Adventure, and Emeralds Included. Her novels are published in the U.S. by Henry Holt & Company and in India by Random House India. Betsy spent ten childhood years in India, studied in France, Zambia and the United States, and now lives in her native New Hampshire. She was a writer and editor for the award-winning documentary series, Experiencing War, produced for the Library of Congress and aired on Public Radio International.   Please visit www.betsywoodman.com for her blog.   The Tiferet Journal is most pleased to also offer to you our multiple, award winning and recently released, “Tiferet Talk Interviews” book. This book includes 12 more exceptional interviews from Julia Cameron, Edward Hirsch, Jude Rittenhouse, Marc Allen, Arielle Ford, Robert Pinsky, Dr. Bernie Siegel, Robin Rice, Jeffrey Davis, Floyd Skloot, Anthony Lawlor, and Lois P. Jones. It can be purchased in both print and Kindle formats at this link on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/bu8m2zsGet inspired to #write with Tiferet’s new “30 Poems in 30 Days” book of prompts!http://amzn.to/1iP73cB

Please join Donna Baier-Stein and Tiferet Journal on 9/23/15 at 7PM EST for a conversation with Robert Carnevale. Robert Carnevale was born in Italy and grew up in Paterson.  He worked in several capacities on the Voices and Visions film series on American poets and was Assistant Coordinator of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Poetry Program for six years.  He teaches in the graduate school at Drew University and in the college at Kean University. Aside from Tiferet, his poems have appeared in The Paris Review, The New Yorker, The Alaska Quarterly, The Literary Review, Sidereal Times and other magazines, and several have been anthologized.  His translations, with Carol Ueland, of Russian poet Aleksandr Kushner are collected in Apollo in the Grass, published this year by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.   The Tiferet Journal is most pleased to also offer to you our multiple, award winning and recently released, “Tiferet Talk Interviews” book. This book includes 12 more exceptional interviews from Julia Cameron, Edward Hirsch, Jude Rittenhouse, Marc Allen, Arielle Ford, Robert Pinsky, Dr. Bernie Siegel, Robin Rice, Jeffrey Davis, Floyd Skloot, Anthony Lawlor, and Lois P. Jones. It can be purchased in both print and Kindle formats at this link on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/bu8m2zs  

Please join Melissa Studdard and Tiferet Journal on 5/21/15 at 7PM EST for a conversation with writers and editors, Jon Tribble and Allison Joseph. Jon Tribble is the managing editor of Crab Orchard Review and the series editor of the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry published by Southern Illinois University Press. He is the recipient of a 2003 Artist Fellowship Award in Poetry from the Illinois Arts Council, and his poems have appeared in journals and anthologies, including Ploughshares, Poetry, Crazyhorse, Quarterly West, and The Jazz Poetry Anthology. His work was selected as a winner of the Campbell Corner Poetry Prize from Sarah Lawrence College.  He teaches creative writing and literature, and directs undergraduate and graduate students in internships and independent study in editing and literary publishing for the Department of English at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.  His first collection of poems, Natural State, will be published by Glass Lyre Press in 2016. Allison Joseph is the author of the books What Keeps Us Here, Soul Train, In Every Seam Imitation of Life, and Worldly Pleasures. Her honors include the John C. Zacharis First Book Prize, fellowships from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers Conferences, and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Poetry. She is editor and poetry editor of Crab Orchard Review and director of the Young Writers Workshop; an annual summer residential creative writing workshop for high school writers. She holds the Judge Williams Holmes Cook Endowed Professorship. As Director of the SIUC MFA Program in Creative Writing, Professor Joseph maintains a blog about the graduate creative writing program at: http://mfacarbondale.blogspot.com. Tiferet Journal is pleased to offer our multiple award winning “Tiferet Talk Interviews” book. Print and Kindle formats on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/bu8m2zs  

Please join Donna Baier-Stein and Tiferet Talk for a conversation with Dorianne Laux on April 29th, 2015 at 7PM EST.  Laux’s most recent books of poems are The Book of Men, winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize, and Facts about the Moon, recipient of the Oregon Book Award and short-listed for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. Laux is also author of Awake, and What We Carry, a finalist for the National Book Critic’s Circle Award, and Smoke. Her work has received three “Best American Poetry” Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, two fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2001, she was invited by late poet laureate Stanley Kunitz to read at the Library of Congress.  In 2014 singer/songwriter Joan Osborne adapted her poem, “The Shipfitter’s Wife” and set it to music on her newest release, “Love and Hate.”  Ce que nous portons (What We Carry), translated by Helene Cardona, has just been published by Editions du Cygne Press, Paris. Laux teaches poetry and directs the MFA program at North Carolina State University and is founding faculty at Pacific University's Low Residency MFA Program. To learn more about Dorianne Laux please visit: http://doriannelaux.net/ Tiferet Journal is pleased to offer our multiple award winning “Tiferet Talk Interviews” book. This book includes 12 exceptional interviews from Julia Cameron, Edward Hirsch, Jude Rittenhouse, Marc Allen, Arielle Ford, Robert Pinsky, Dr. Bernie Siegel, Robin Rice, Jeffrey Davis, Floyd Skloot, Anthony Lawlor, and Lois P. Jones. You can purchase it in print and Kindle formats on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/bu8m2zs

Please join Donna Baier-Stein and Tiferet Talk for a conversation with Jessica Treadway on March 25th, 2015 at 7PM EST. Jessica Treadway’s novel Lacy Eye will be published by Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Book Group in March 2015. Her story collection Please Come Back To Me received the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction and was published by University of Georgia Press in 2010.  Her previous books are Absent Without Leave and Other Stories and a novel, And Give You Peace.  A professor at Emerson College, she has received grants fromthe National Endowment for the Arts andthe Massachusetts Cultural Foundation. To learn more about Jessica Treadway please visit: http://www.jessicatreadway.com/ Tiferet Journal is pleased to also offer to you our multiple award-winning The Tiferet Talk Interviews book. This book includes 12 exceptional interviews from Julia Cameron, Edward Hirsch, Jude Rittenhouse, Marc Allen, Arielle Ford, Robert Pinsky, Dr. Bernie Siegel, Robin Rice, Jeffrey Davis, Floyd Skloot, Anthony Lawlor, and Lois P. Jones. It can be purchased in both print and Kindle formats at this link on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/bu8m2zs  

Please join Melissa Studdard and Tiferet Journal on 10/28/14 at 7PM EST for a conversation with poet, editor, chaplain and creative writing professor Martha Serpas. Serpas is the author of two collections of poetry, Côte Blanche and The Dirty Side of the Storm. Her work has appeared in places such as The New Yorker, The Nation, and Southwest Review, as well as in a number of anthologies, including the Library of America’s American Religious Poems. She holds degrees in English and creative writing from Louisiana State, New York University, and the University of Houston, and a master of divinity from Yale Divinity School. For many years as an educational consultant and as a poet-in-residence, she facilitated the teaching of writing to children in New York City classrooms. She has taught recently at Yale Divinity School and the University of Tampa, where she served as poetry editor of Tampa Review. A native of south Louisiana, she remains active in efforts to restore Louisiana’s wetlands. Since 2006 she has worked as a trauma chaplain, first at Tampa General Hospital and now at Memorial Hermann—Texas Medical Center. She teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston. To learn more about Martha Serpas please visit: http://www.marthaserpas.com/. And, to purchase her books: http://tinyurl.com/m9yqhuh Tiferet Journal is pleased to also offer to you our multiple award-winning The Tiferet Talk Interviews book. This book includes 12 exceptional interviews from Julia Cameron, Edward Hirsch, Jude Rittenhouse, Marc Allen, Arielle Ford, Robert Pinsky, Dr. Bernie Siegel, Robin Rice, Jeffrey Davis, Floyd Skloot, Anthony Lawlor, and Lois P. Jones. It can be purchased in both print and Kindle formats at this link on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/bu8m2zs

Please join Donna Baier Stein and Tiferet Journal on 11/18/14 at 7PM EST for a conversation with Susan Piver. Susan Piver is a New York Times best-selling author of seven books and founder of the Open Heart Project, an international online meditation community with over 12,000 members. Susan's books include The Hard Questions, the award-winning How Not to Be Afraid of Your Own Life, and The Wisdom of a Broken Heart. Her next book, Start Here Now: A Guide to the Path and Practice of Meditation, will be published in 2015. She has studied Buddhism since 1995, graduating from a Buddhist seminary in 2004. Susan was authorized to teach meditation in the Shambhala Buddhist lineage in 2005. Susan teaches workshops and speaks internationally on spirituality, meditation, communication styles, relationships, and creativity. In addition to writing the relationships column for body + soul magazine, she is the meditation expert and contributor at drweil.com and frequently appears as a network TV guest for shows including The Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, Today, and The Tyra Banks Show. Susan's work has been featured in numerous publications, such as The New York Times, TIME, the Wall Street Journal, Parade, Money, and others. She launched The Open Heart Project in 2011. The online meditation community features members who practice together and find ways to bring spiritual values including kindness, genuineness, and fearlessness to everyday life. Our multiple award-winning The Tiferet Talk Interviews book can be purchased on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/bu8m2zs

Please join Donna Baier-Stein and Tiferet Journal on 09/24/14 at 7PM EST  for a conversation withDan Millman and Sierra Prasada. Father-daughter team Dan Millman and Sierra Prasada offers a unique collaboration in The Creative Compass: Writing Your Way from Inspiration to Publication. The book revolves around their combined experience in fiction and nonfiction, along with journalism, theater, and film adaptation. Millman is the author of 17 books in 29 languages. Some of his most prominent works include his first book, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, which was adapted to a film, "Peaceful Warrior," The Life You Were Born to Live, Everyday Enlightenment, and The Journey of Socrates. Prasada, who currently lives in Washington, D.C., is the founder of the 20th Century Project, which highlights several major works produced over the past 100 years. She also works as a freelance journalist, workshop teacher, and editor. Prasada has taught writing and creativity courses at The Graduate School USA, Mount Madonna, and Kripalu. She is the author of Creative Lives: Portraits of Lebanese Artists. The Tiferet Journal is most pleased to also offer to you our multiple, award winning and recently released “Tiferet Talk Interviews” book. This book includes 12 more exceptional interviews from Julia Cameron, Edward Hirsch, Jude Rittenhouse, Marc Allen, Arielle Ford, Robert Pinsky, Dr. Bernie Siegel, Robin Rice, Jeffrey Davis, Floyd Skloot, Anthony Lawlor, and Lois P. Jones. It can be purchased in both print and Kindle formats at this link on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/bu8m2zs

Please join Tiferet Journal on 08/12/14 at 7 PM EST for a conversation with award-winning poet, editor, translator, and critic Aliki Barnstone. Aliki Barnstone's books of poetry include the National Book Critics Circle Notable Book Madly in Love (Carnegie-Mellon, 1997), Blue Earth (Iris, 2004), Wild With It (Sheep Meadow, 2002), Windows in Providence (Curbstone, 1981) and Bright Body (White Pine Press, 2011). Other publications include The Collected Poems of C.P. Cavafy (W.W. Norton, 2006) and Changing Rapture: Emily Dickinson's Poetic Development (University Press of New England, 2007)). Barnstone received two Pulitzer Prize nominations. In addition, she edited A Book of Women Poets from Antiquity to Now (Schocken), The Calvanist Roots of the Modern Era (University Press of New England), Voices of Light: Spiritual and Visionary Poetry by Women from Ancient Sumeria to Now (Shambhala). Aliki was a Senior Fulbright Scholar in Greece in 2006. Her poems and translations have appeared in publications such as The American Poetry Review, The Georgia Review, New Letters, Pleiades, Prairie Schooner, The Southern Review, TriQuarterly, and Virginia Quarterly Review. To learn more about Aliki Barnstone please visit: http://alikibarnstone.com/. And to purchase her books: http://bit.ly/1vb0RQq.   Producer: RJ Jeffreys Co-Producer: Udo Hintz  

Please join us for a conversation with award-winning novelist, short story writer, poet, essayist and creative writing professor Elizabeth Cox. Cox received the Robert Penn Warren Award for Fiction and was inducted into the Fellowship of Southern Writers in 2011. Her novel Night Talk received the Lillian Smith Award from the Southern Regional Council, the University of Georgia Libraries and Georgia Center for the Book. In addition to four novels, Cox has published a recent collection of poetry I Have Told You and Told You and a collection of short stories called Bargains in the Real World. Of this story collection, poet Mary Oliver wrote, "Those who know Elizabeth Cox as a person and as a writer know that she is continually courageous and melodious and has never yet softened the difficult facts of the world. Her stories are treasures, full of truth, possibility, and beauty." Two of her stories have been featured on NPR; “The Third of July” was an O’Henry Prize winner. Cox has also received the North Carolina Fiction Award - Individual Artist Grant, a Massachusetts Arts Council Grant, and Fellowships from Yaddo and MacDowell writers’ colonies. She was the 2003 Jack Kerouac Writer-in-Residence at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and has also taught at Duke University, University of Michigan, Tufts University, Boston University, the Bennington Low Residency Program, and MIT. She recently retired from the John Cobb Chair of Humanities at South Carolina's Wofford College, a chair she shared with her husband C. Michael Curtis. Tiferet Journal is pleased to also offer to you our multiple award-winning The Tiferet Talk Interviews book. This book includes 12 exceptional interviews. It can be purchased in both print and Kindle formats at this link on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/bu8m2zs

Please join Melissa Studdard and Tiferet Journal on 07/10/14 at 7PM EST for a conversation with fabulous poet, essayist and creative writing professor Chard deNiord. DeNiord’s poetry collections include Asleep in the Fire, Sharp Golden Thorn, Night Mowing, and The Double Truth, as well as a collaborative project, Speaking in Turn. DeNiord was the founder and director of the Spirit and Letter Workshop with Jacqueline Gens in Patzquaro, Mexico and the founder and director of the New England College MFA Program in Poetry. He currently teaches English and Creative Writing at Providence College. In addition to teaching writing, deNiord has also taught comparative religions and philosophy and holds a Master of Divinity from Yale. As well, deNiord has conducted many interviews with senior American poets. Many of these interviews are collected in the book Sad Friends, Drowned Lovers, Stapled Songs, which also includes essays. To learn more about Chard deNiord please visit: http://charddeniord.com/. And to purchase his books: http://tinyurl.com/qe2xtcv Tiferet Journal is pleased to also offer to you our multiple award-winning The Tiferet Talk Interviews book. This book includes 12 exceptional interviews from Julia Cameron, Edward Hirsch, Jude Rittenhouse, Marc Allen, Arielle Ford, Robert Pinsky, Dr. Bernie Siegel, Robin Rice, Jeffrey Davis, Floyd Skloot, Anthony Lawlor, and Lois P. Jones. It can be purchased in both print and Kindle formats at this link on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/bu8m2zs  

Join Melissa Studdard and Donna Baier-Stein for a conversation with Richard Bausch--the masterful and award-winning author of eleven novels, eight short story collections, and one volume of poetry and prose. Bausch's stories have appeared in Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly, Gentleman's Quarterly, Esquire and many other magazines and have been anthologized in The Granta Book of the American Short Story and Something Is Out There: Stories (Vintage Contemporaries). In 2012, he won the prestigious $30,000 Rea Award for The Short Story. Richard Bausch's story collection “Something Is Out There" was a 2010 Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist, and an earlier novel, The Last Good Time, was made into a movie directed by Bob Balaban. His eighth novel, Peace, won the 2009 Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the W.Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction from the American Library Association. He has also written a book of poetry and prose called These Extremes. Bausch is the recipient of numerous grants, and fellowships including a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Hillsdale Prize of The Fellowship of Southern Writers, The Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Award in Literature. In 1997, Richard Bausch was elected to the Fellowship of Southern Writers and ten years later he became chancellor of the Fellowship. Since 2002, Richard Bausch has been the editor of The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. He currently teaches at Chapman University in Orange, California. To find out more about, Richard Bausch: http://richardbausch.com/ And to purchase his books, visit:  http://tinyurl.com/l25gls5          

Please join Melissa Studdard and her new co-host and publisher of Tiferet Journal, Donna Baier Stein on 04/29/14 at 7PM EST for a conversation with author, poet, life coach and creative writing teacher Molly Fisk. Fisk’s books include the poetry collections The More Difficult Beauty and Listening to Winter, and a collection of radio essays, Blow-Drying a Chicken, Observations from a Working Poet.   Fisk has appeared for Tedx Events and in the PBS documentary, “The Loss of Nameless Things,” and she is the recipient of many fellowships, including grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the California Arts Council and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Among the many other honors she has received are a Dogwood Prize, the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Prize in Poetry, and the National Writer’s Union. She is also poet laureate of KVMR-FM, where she can be heard weekly. To purchase Molly Fisk's books, and to learn more about her, please visit: http://tinyurl.com/mg4u5yk and Wikipedia: http://tinyurl.com/n3ds8nw Tiferet Journal is pleased to also offer to you our multiple award-winning The Tiferet Talk Interviews book. This book includes 12 exceptional interviews from Julia Cameron, Edward Hirsch, Jude Rittenhouse, Marc Allen, Arielle Ford, Robert Pinsky, Dr. Bernie Siegel, Robin Rice, Jeffrey Davis, Floyd Skloot, Anthony Lawlor, and Lois P. Jones. It can be purchased in both print and Kindle formats on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/bu8m2zs

Please join Melissa Studdard and Tiferet Journal on 3/11/14, from 7-7:30 PM EST, for a conversation with essayist, author, critic, and screenwriter, Caroline Leavitt. Studdard and Leavitt will discuss Leavitt’s most recent novel, Is This Tomorrow, among other things literary. Leavitt is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of numerous books, many of which have been optioned for film, translated into different languages, and condensed in magazines. Her essays, stories, book reviews and articles have appeared in Salon, Psychology Today, The New York Times Sunday Book Review, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and other such magazines, anthologies, and newspapers. As well, Leavitt is the recipient of many honors and accolades, including First Prize in Redbook Magazine's Young Writers Contest and a New York Foundation of the Arts Award, and her work has appeared on the Best Books lists of countless magazines and newspapers, such as The San Francisco Chronicle, The Providence Journal, Bookmarks Magazine, Kirkus Reviews, and more. Of Is This Tomorrow, Joyce Maynard states, “Reading this story is a memorable and moving journey and one that (for those who don’t already love her work) reveals Leavitt to be a brave and humane writer who also understands what keeps us turning the pages.” For more information on Caroline Leavitt please visit:  www.carolineleavitt.com/ and for her books: http://tinyurl.com/lhh6qy4 The Tiferet Journal is pleased to offer 12 more exceptional interviews in the just released, "Tiferet Talk Interviews" book. It can be purchased here:  http://tinyurl.com/bu8m2zs

Please join Melissa Studdard and Tiferet Journal on 1/29/14 from 7 - 7:30 PM EST for a conversation with poet, author, translator, and publisher, William O' Daly. O'Daly is a board member of Poets Against War and co-founder of Copper Canyon Press, a prestigious non-profit organization dedicated to publishing poetry. An NEA recipient and finalist for the Quill Award in Poetry, O’Daly is the translator of numerous poetry collections by the Nobel Laureate, Pablo Neruda, as well as the author of a chapbook of poems, The Whale in the Web. Poems from both his own creative work and his translations have been adapted for dance and stage performances and photo exhibitions, and he collaborates frequently with classical and jazz musicians in performance of his work. Most recently, O'Daly has completed two manuscripts—a full-length poetry collection and a collaborative novel, with Han-ping Chin. Of O’Daly’s translation of The Separate Rose, poet Sam Hamill states, “In his brilliant translation of The Separate Rose, William O’Daly has rendered the wide range of expression that characterizes Neruda’s Orphic tongue and its two voices, one of temporality, oppression, and sadness, the other celebrating mystery and vitality.” For more information on William O'Daly please visit: http://williamodaly.com/ and http://www.coppercanyonpress.org/ Tiferet Journal is pleased to offer 12 more exceptional interviews in the just released, "Tiferet Talk Interviews" book. It can be purchased here:  http://tinyurl.com/bu8m2zs

Please join Melissa Studdard and Tiferet Journal on 1/09/14, from 7-7:30 PM EST, for a conversation with author, journalist, producer, and talk show host Krista Tippett about her non-fiction works Speaking of Faith and Einstein's God, and her radio program, On Being. Speaking of Faith is a memoir of religion in our time and covers Tippett’s move from geopolitical engagement to theology and the cumulative wisdom of her interviews.  Of Speaking of Faith, Elizabeth Gilbert says, "Her intelligence is like a salve for all who have been wounded or marginalized by the God Wars." Tippett’s program On Being is currently broadcast on more than 200 public radio stations in the United States and globally via NPR Worldwide, its website, and its podcast. Tippett has described her work with the program as "tracing the intersection between great religious ideas and human experience, between theology and real life." Tippet holds a history degree from Brown and a Masters of Divinity from Yale, and she has served as a freelance foreign correspondent (reporting and writing for The Times, Newsweek, the BBC, the International Herald Tribune, and Die Zeit) and chief aide in Berlin to the U.S. ambassador to West Germany.  To buy The Tiferet Talk Interviews book, a collection from our first year, Click Here.

Please join Melissa Studdard and Tiferet Journal on 12/16/13 at 7 PM EST for an interview with poet, author, artist, coach and interfaith minister, Kanta Bosniak. Bosniak is a nationally recognized expert on what she calls  “Abundance Triggers,” the practice of using art, interior design and other anchors to enhance positive focus. She has a private practice of coaching and guided imagery in Southwestern Virginia. Bosniak’s books includeAbundance Triggers,Twin Flames,and the Becoming Process. As well, Bosniak has been featured in magazines such as Studies in Education, Raw Vision, SageWoman, Tidewater Women, Point of Light, and Oracle 20/20 and was twice Artist-in-Residence at Omega Institute. In addition, Bosniak is an award-winning member of the National Guild of Hypnotists and holds Master Level certifications in hypnosis, spiritual coaching and Reiki. Of Abundance Triggers Rev. Nancy J. Oristaglio says, “Kanta Bosniak is a soulful voice for finding within ourselves what has really never been lost: ourSelves. In her groundbreaking new book Abundance Triggers, she offers unique and self-affirming tools that we can use to ‘trigger’ the knowledge of our essential nature and living our lives more abundantly.” To buy The Tiferet Talk Interviews book, a collection from our first year, Click Here.

Please join Melissa Studdard and Tiferet Journal on 11/25/13, from 7-7:30 PM EST, for a conversation with neuropsychologist and author, Rick Hanson, Ph.D. We will discuss Hanson’s most recent book, the New York Times bestseller Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence. Hanson is also the author of Buddha's Brain, Just One Thing, and Mother Nurture, and his articles have appeared in Tricycle Magazine, Insight Journal, and Inquiring Mind. He has several audio programs with Sounds True, he edits the Wise Brain Bulletin, and his weekly e-newsletter - Just One Thing - appears on Huffington Post, Psychology Today, and other major websites. As well, Hanson is an authority on self-directed neuroplasticity, founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, and an Affiliate of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. Of Hardwiring Happiness, Thich Nhat Hanh states, “The cultivation of happiness is one of the most important skills anyone can ever learn. Luckily, it’s not hard when we know the way to water and nourish these wholesome seeds, which are already there in our consciousness. This book offers simple, accessible, practical steps for touching the peace and joy that are every person’s birthright.” To buy The Tiferet Talk Interviews book, a collection from our first year, Click Here.

Please join Melissa Studdard and Tiferet Journal on 10/21/13, from 1-1:30 PM EST, for a conversation with renowned poet and critic, Alfred Corn. Studdard and Corn will discuss Corn’s most recent collection of poetry, Tables, among other things literary and spiritual. Corn is a frequent reviewer for The New York Times Book Review and The Nation, and, in addition to poetry, has published a novel, critical essays, a prosody manual, a book of art criticism, and a Proust translation. Corn, whose poetry has been widely anthologized, has been a recipient of the Levinson Prize from Poetry magazine, an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Academy of American Poets, and the Rockefeller Study and Conference Center at Bellagio, Italy. As well, he received the Amy Clampitt Residency in 2004. Of Corn’s poetry, Carolyn Forché, of The Lambda Book Report, says, "Corn's formal range is everywhere apparent. He even attempts sapphics in English which closely resemble what might be accomplished in the Greek. But as he understands art to be 'always more than technical virtuosity,' his poetry never merely displays his considerable poetic skills, but rather becomes a mode of thought, an inquiry into art and passion, the limits of mastery, mortality, divinity, and the possible destiny of the human soul." To buy The Tiferet Talk Interviews book, a collection from our first year, Click Here.

Please join Melissa Studdard and Tiferet Journal on 10/2/13, from 7-7:30 PM EST, for a conversation with author, psychologist, and Zen practitioner, Dr. Andrea F. Polard. Studdard and Polard will discuss Polard’s book, A Unified Theory of Happiness: An East-Meets-West Approach to Fully Loving Your Life, a groundbreaking synthesis of Western thinking and Eastern philosophy. Polard started her meditation practice and interest in psychology at age sixteen. Having endured childhood trauma, happiness was on her mind early on, as she wondered whether she and her fellow-sufferers could really be happy. In pursuit of answers, Polard earned two master's degrees in clinical psychology, one from Freie University and another from Ryokan College, where she also earned a doctorate in psychology. When Dr. Polard discovered that happiness was indeed possible for all, she decided to share the necessary, consciousness-building skills for it. As writing had long been a passion, she soon started on A Unified Theory of Happiness -- a project that took her twelve devoted years to complete. It is a book that is not only to inform, but delight the reader. Dr. Polard is also the founder of the Los Angeles Center for Zen Psychology, which offers Zen psychotherapy, consultations, workshops, training, and meditation groups, based on both Western and Eastern thought. To buy TheTiferet Talk Interviews book, a collection from our first year, Click Here.

Please join Melissa Studdard and Tiferet Journal on 9/4/13, from 7-7:30 PM EST, 6-6:30 PM CST, for a conversation with fabulous poet, acclaimed literary critic, professor, editor, best-selling translator, and former United States Poet Laureate, Robert Pinsky. Studdard and Pinsky will discuss Pinsky’s newly released anthology, Singing School, a joyous collection that “proposes that attention to great poetry is the best path to fresher, more pleasurable writing and reading.” According to scholar and poet Alicia Ostriker, “Singing School is nothing like the usual anthology of safe and sane selections. Instead, it is a gathering of poetry designed to stimulate the young and startle the old practitioner, with a surprise around every corner. Where else might you find Sterling Brown's 'Harlem Happiness' next to Queen Elizabeth I's 'When I Was Fair and Young,' and two poems away from Plath's 'Nick and the Candlestick'? . . . A book that will instruct and charm every reader." Pinsky has received numerous awards for his poetry and translations, including the Lenore Marshall Award, the Ambassador Book Award of the English Speaking Union, the PEN/Voelcker Award, the William Carlos Williams Prize, and the Theodore M. Roethke Memorial Poetry Award.  He currently teaches in the graduate writing program at Boston University and serves as the poetry editor for Slate. Tiferet Journal recently published a compilation of twelve of our best transcribed interviews. To purchase The Tiferet Talk Interviews book, please click here.

Please join Melissa Studdard and Tiferet Journal on 7/29/13, from 7-7:30 PM EST, 6-6:30 PM CST, for a conversation with award-winning poet, memoirist, playwright, and professor, Doug Anderson.  Anderson is the author of the poetry collections, The Moon Reflected Fire and Blues for Unemployed Secret Police, as well as the play, Short Timers, and the memoir, Keep Your Head Down: Vietnam, the Sixties, and a Journey of Self-Discovery. His awards include a Pushcart Prize and a Kate Tufts Discovery Award, in addition to grants and fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Poets & Writers, National Endowment for the Arts, and the MacDowell Colony. Anderson currently teaches for Smith College, Emerson College, and the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Its Social Consequences at the University of Massachusetts. His work has appeared in Ploughshares,the Connecticut Review, The Massachusetts Review, Virginia Quarterly, The Southern Review, Field,The Autumn House Anthology of American Poetry, and Contemporary American War Poetry. Of Anderson’s work, Martin Espada states, “He is one of the bravest poets I know, utterly uncompromising. His language brims with compassion, rage, tenderness and pain … Anderson is cursed and blessed with memory, and his considerable poetic gift assures that we won’t forget, either.” Tiferet Journal has recently published a compilation of twelve of our best transcribed interviews. To purchase The Tiferet Talk Interviews book, please click here.

Join Melissa Studdard for an insightful conversation with prize-winning poet, translator, and essayist, Jane Hirshfield.  We’ll be focusing on Hirshfield’s most recent collection, Come, Thief and discussing other works as well. Hirshfield is the author of seven collections of poetry and a book of essays, and co-editor and co-translator of four books. Her work, which is frequently anthologized in places such as The Best Spiritual Writing, The Best American Poetry, and The Pushcart Prize Anthology, deals with subjects that range "from the metaphysical and passionate to the political, ecological, and scientific to subtle unfoldings of daily life and experience.” Her honors include The Poetry Center Book Award; the Donald Hall-Jane Kenyon Prize in American Poetry; fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Academy of American Poets; Columbia University’s Translation Center Award; and the Commonwealth Club’s California Book Award and the Northern California Book Reviewers Award. In fall 2004, she was awarded the 70th Academy Fellowship for distinguished poetic achievement by The Academy of American Poets, an honor formerly held by such poets as Robert Frost, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and Elizabeth Bishop. In 2012, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy. The Christian Science Monitor calls Hirshfield’s poems, “An evocative mix of control and wildness, stunning beauty and unseen forces.” Tiferet Journal has recently published a compilation of twelve of our best transcribed interviews. To purchase The Tiferet Talk Interviews book, please click here.

Please join us as Tiferet Talk host Melissa Studdard speaks with writer and editor extraordinaire, William Kenower, about writing and inspiration. Kenower is the author of Write Within Yourself: An Author's Companion; host of the radio program Author2Author, for which he has conversed with hundreds of writers about the books we write and the lives we lead; and Editor-in-Chief of Author magazine, for which he writes a popular daily blog about the intersection of writing and our daily lives. Of Write Within Yourself, Erica Bauermeister says, "This is a book you'll want to keep on your nightstand or desk, always available, ready to inspire you."  Laura Munson says, "These stories and essays can't help but land in the heart of the reader."  Note: The Tiferet Talk Interviews book is a fascinating collection of twelve interviews hosted by, Melissa Studdard, and transcribed from the Tiferet Talk Radio show. To purchase the book please click here.

Please join us as Tiferet Talk Host Melissa Studdard speaks with fabulous poet and creative nonfiction writer Molly Peacock about a variety of topics, including her newly released book The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life's Work at 72. Former Poet-in-Residence at the American Poets' Corner and former President of the Poetry Society of America, Peacock is one of the creators of Poetry in Motion on subways and buses throughout North America. As well, for ten years Peacock conducted quarterly poetry circles on Wisconsin Public Radio. She is the author of numerous books in the genres of poetry, memoir, creative non-fiction, and craft, as well as a one-woman staged monologue in poems, which she performed in theatres throughout North America. She is also the editor of collections of both creative non-fiction and poetry.   Among her awards are Danforth Foundation, Ingram Merrill Foundation, Woodrow Wilson Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and New York State Council on the Arts Fellowships. Currently Peacock is on the faculty of the Spalding University Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts program and serves as Series Editor of The Best Canadian Poetry in English, published each year by Tightrope Books in Toronto. In a starred review, Booklist says of The Paper Garden, "Peacock does with words what Delany did with scissors and paper, consummately constructing an indelible portrait of a late-blooming artist, an exalted inquiry into creativity, and a resounding celebration of the 'power of amazement'."  Enjoy 12 more exceptional interviews from, "The Tiferet Talk Interviews" book, it can be purchased from Amazon here: http://tinyurl.com/bu8m2zs

Please join us as Tiferet Host Melissa Studdard, and Guest Co-Host, Tiferet Associate Editor, R Jeffreys, speak with the fabulous literary duo, poets Hélène Cardona and John FitzGerald. In addition to writing poetry, Cardona is an actor, translator, teacher, and dream analyst. She is the author of the just released, bilingual poetry collection Dreaming My Animal Selves, as well as The Astonished Universe and Life in Suspension. Of Cardona’s Dreaming My Animal Selves, Jean Houston says, “In this extraordinary volume of soul crafted poetry, words become wands to enchant and evoke our better selves.” FitzGerald, in addition to writing poetry, is a novelist, editor, and lawyer. He is the author  of Telling Time by the Shadows; The Mind; and the novel in verse, Spring Water, which was a Turning Point Books prize selection in 2005. His fourth collection, Favorite Bedtime Stories, is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry in 2014. Robert Nazarene says that FitzGerald’s Spring Water is “to poetry what The Silence of the Lambs is to filmdom: a harrowing, narrative trip that makes for an absolutely compelling read...brilliantly delivered by one of America's most promising new poets." Please note that Tiferet Journal has recently published a compilation of twelve of our best transcribed interviews. To purchase The Tiferet Talk Interviews book, please click here.

Please join us as Melissa Studdard will speak with writer and writing teacher, Julie Maloney. Maloney’s first poetry collection, Private Landscape, was published in 2007, and in 2003 she founded WOMEN READING ALOUD, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting women writers through special events and workshops. Maloney is a trained workshop leader in the Amherst Writers and Artists Method, an organization whose philosophy is that “every person is a writer, and every writer deserves a safe environment in which to experiment, learn, and develop craft.” Maloney’s teachings focus on what she calls the 3-in-1 principle, which asserts the equal value of the writer, the reader, and the listener. Of Maloney’s first poetry collection, Poet Charlotte Mandel states, “Julie Maloney's poems in her collection - PRIVATE LANDSCAPE - move with the exquisite grace of her abilities as a dancer and choreographer. Dream narratives sing in delicate imagery. Pain of cancer is here, honestly revealed and transcended; love is here, in its greatest giving. There is not a trace of easy sentimentality. This is a collection to remember, at once personal and universal.”  Tiferet Journal has recently published a compilation of twelve of our best transcribed interviews. To purchase The Tiferet Talk Interviews book, please click here.  

Tiferet Talk host Melissa Studdard speaks with author, poet, teacher, and painter, Natalie Goldberg about her forthcoming book, The True Secret of Writing. Goldberg is the author of the seminal writing books Writing Down the Bones, Wild Mind, Thunder & Lightning, and Old Friend from Far Away, which, together with her life-changing workshops, have rent open the landscape of creativity and inspired a revolution in the practice of writing in this country. Goldberg’s own gorgeous creative works include the novel Banana Rose; the memoirs Long Quiet Highway and The Great Failure; and the painting and poetry books Living Color, Top of My Lungs, and Chicken & In Love. Goldberg’s books have sold millions of copies worldwide, and her extraordinary teaching methods have drawn students from across the globe. The True Secret of Writing is the capstone to four decades of Goldberg’s teachings and reveals newly-developed methods not found in her previous books. Of The True Secret of Writing, Noah Levine states, “Natalie Goldberg has done the unthinkable, she has shared the secret teaching. The buddhas of time immemorial are rejoicing and the literary bodhisattvas are sm

Tiferet Talk host Melissa Studdard speaks with writer, yoga instructor, psychologist, and physical therapist Judith Hanson Lasater about how to live your yoga and other vital topics. Lasater, who has been teaching yoga since 1971 and is the president of the California Yoga Teachers' Association, is a founder of both the Iyengar Yoga Institute in San Francisco and Yoga Journal magazine.  As well, Lasater is the author of many books, including What We Say Matters: Practicing Nonviolent Communication (with Ike Lasater, 2009), Living Your Yoga: Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life (1999), A Year of Living Your Yoga (2006), and Relax and Renew: Restful Yoga for Stressful Times (1995), all published by Rodmell Press.  In praise of Lasater, Patricia Walden states, “Judith Lasater presents timeless wisdom with clarity and insight. She is a well-seasoned yogini, who writes from personal experience on how to use the events of daily life as yoga poses for the mind and heart.” Please note that Tiferet Journal has recently published a compilation of twelve of our best transcribed interviews. To purchase The Tiferet Talk Interviews book, please click here. .

Tiferet Talk Host Melissa Studdard speaks with writer and psychologist Jacqueline Sheehan. They discuss Sheehan’s emotionally-riveting work, with a focus on the novel Picture This, released just this past May as a sequel to the New York Times Bestseller, Lost and Found, which has been optioned for film by Katherine Heigl, star of Grey’s Anatomy. Sheehan’s other books include her first novel, Truth, published in 2003 by Free Press of Simon and Schuster; her third novel, Now & Then, published in July 2009 by Avon, Harper Collins; and her anthology, Women Writing in Prison, which is a culmination of eight years of writing workshops sponsored by Voices from Inside, an advocacy group for incarcerated women. As well, Sheehan has published travel articles, short stories, and numerous essays and radio pieces. Sheehan teaches workshops at Grub Street in Boston and Writers in Progress in Florence, Massachusetts. Of Picture This, Ellen Meeropol states: “This page-turner is a profound exploration of damage done in childhood, the nature of evil, and the difficulty of knowing what is true.”   Tiferet Journal has recently published a compilation of twelve of our best transcribed interviews. To purchase The Tiferet Talk Interviews book, please click here.

We discussed the many facets of Piercy's work, with an emphasis on The Hunger Moon: New and Selected Poems. Deeply engaged with life on a multitude of levels, Piercy has advocated for human rights as a key player in many of the major political battles of our time and has written passionately about themes essential to the progress of humanity. Piercy is the author of eighteen volumes of poetry, including The Art of Blessing the Day: Poems With a Jewish Theme; several non-fiction books, including the critically acclaimed memoir, Sleeping with Cats; and seventeen novels, including The New York Times Bestseller Gone To Soldiers, the National Bestsellers Braided Lives and The Longings of Women, and the classic Woman on the Edge of Time. Piercy has been the recipient of four honorary doctorate degrees and has taught, lectured, and performed her work at over 400 universities around the world. As well, she has been a featured writer on Bill Moyers’ PBS Specials, Prairie Home Companion, Fresh Air, the Today Show, and many radio programs nationwide including Air America and Oprah & Friends. Her poems are read frequently on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac. Of Piercy's The Hunger Moon, The Christian Science Monitor states, "[These] selected poems deserve to be read over and over because they work together beautifully and demonstrate the poet's considerable talent and skill. They also remind readers why Marge Piercy is a literary icon whose work and career are unmatched." Tiferet Journal has recently published a compilation of twelve of our best transcribed interviews. To purchase The Tiferet Talk Interviews book, please click here.

Please join us on 10/22/12 at 7 PM EST for a talk with Dani Shapiro, bestselling memoirist and novelist. We'll be discussing Shapiro's exploration self and faith through the memoir Devotion, as well as other works. In addition to Devotion, Shapiro is the author of the memoir Slow Motion, and five novels, including Black & White and Family History. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Tin House, One Story, Elle, The New York Times Book Review, and The Los Angeles Times, and has been widely anthologized. She has taught in the writing programs at Columbia, NYU, The New School and Wesleyan University, and she is co-founder of the Sirenland Writers Conference in Positano, Italy. As well, she is a contributing editor at Travel + Leisure.  Of Shapiro's Devotion, Jennifer Egan states, “I was on the verge of tears more than once in the course of Dani Shapiro’s impeccably structured spiritual odyssey. But Devotion’s biggest triumph is its voice: funny and unpretentious, concrete and earthy–appealing to skeptics and believers alike. This is a gripping, beautiful story.” Tiferet Journal has recently published a compilation of twelve of our best transcribed interviews. To purchase The Tiferet Talk Interviews book, please click here.  

Please join us for a conversation with Ron Starbuck. Starbuck has been a contributing writer for Parabola Magazine, has had poetry published in Tiferet Journal and other journals and anthologies, and is the author of Wheels Turning Inward, a rich collection of over fifty poems that follow a poet's mythic and spiritual journey across the paths of many contemplative traditions. Starbuck has been deeply engaged in an Interfaith-Buddhist-Christian dialogue for many years and holds a lifelong interest in Christian mysticism, comparative religion, theology, and various forms of contemplative practice.  As well, Starbuck is the founder of Saint Julian Press, a nonprofit organization that will soon publish works that foster an interfaith and cross-cultural literary dialogue. For more information, or to read Ron’s work, please see: http://ronstarbuck-poet.blogspot.com/ or http://saintjulianpress.com/index.html.   Tiferet Journal has recently published a compilation of twelve of our best transcribed interviews. To purchase The Tiferet Talk Interviews book, please click here.

Please join us for a lively conversation  as our fabulous guest host R Jeffreys, of The Write Step, interviews Tifereteditor and blogtalk host Melissa Studdard and Tiferet Journal publisher and producer Donna Baier Stein. The topic of discussion will be the just published The Tiferet TalkInterviews book, a collection of the first year of Tiferet Talk interviews. The Tiferet TalkInterviews book, introduced by Tiferet Journal publisher, Donna Baier Stein, contains interviews Studdard conducted with the following brilliant and eclectic bunch of writers: Robert Pinsky, Floyd Skloot, Lois P. Jones, Julia Cameron, Marc Allen, Edward Hirsch, Bernie Siegel, Arielle Ford, Jude Rittenhouse, Jeffrey Davis, Robin Rice, and Anthony Lawlor.    To purchase The Tiferet Talk Interviews book, please click here.

Please join us on July 30th at 7 PM EST for a conversation with the dazzling literary talent Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. Divakaruni  is an award-winning author, poet, and teacher, whose works have been translated into 29 languages, including Dutch, Hebrew, Russian and Japanese. She writes for both adults and children and covers many themes, including women, immigration, the South Asian experience, history, myth, magical realism and diversity. Two of her novels, The Mistress of Spices and Sister of My Heart, have been made into films. Her short story collection, Arranged Marriage, won an American Book Award. Divakaruni teaches in the illustrious Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston. Of her novel One Amazing Thing, Ha Jin states, "Ingeniously conceived and intelligently written, this novel is a fable for our time. The characters . . . vibrate with life whenever they begin to speak.” Tiferet Journal has recently published a compilation of twelve of our best transcribed interviews. To purchase The Tiferet Talk Interviews book, please click here.    

  Please join us live at 7 PM EST 6/24/2012 for a talk with Rasoul Shams, translator of Rumi: The Art of Loving. We're delighted to announce, as well, that Rasoul will be reading  from the poetry in both English and Persian.  Rasoul first learned of Rumi’s poems in his Persian classes as a young boy growing up in Iran,and now the works of Rumi and other Persian poets have been his spiritual companions for over three decades. Having lived and studied in Iran, India, Japan and the USA, Rasoul's life and education are rooted in a multi-cultural, multi-language matrix.  Rasoul founded the Rumi Poetry Club in 2007 (on the 800th anniversary of Rumi’s birth). Based in Salt Lake City, Utah, the club celebrates the poetry of East and West through its monthly meetings, annual gatherings, website, and publications. As well, Rasoul has published a number of essays in such magazines as The World and I, Interrelgious Insight, Pure Inspiration, Light of Consciousness, Kyoto Journal, The Himalayan Journal, Mandala, Persian Heritage, Sufi, and the Rumi Review. He is currently working on another anthology of Rumi’s poetry. Rumi, a renowned Persian mystic poet of the thirteenth century, is currently one of the most widely-read poets in North America and Europe – thanks to the free-verse translations of his works that have made this poet’s voice and vision accessible to our generation.  

Please join usas Melissa Studdard interviews renowned spiritual author John E. Welshons. Welshons is a prolific author as well as founder and president of Open Heart Seminars, an organization whose aim is to increase spiritual awareness and education. He is best known for his works One Soul, One Love, One Heart: The Sacred Path to Healing All Relationships (co-authored with Ram Dass) and When Prayers Aren't Answered: Opening the Heart and Quieting the Mind in Challenging Times (co-authored with Richard Carlson). An active and accomplished writer, this is not an interview to miss!  Tiferet Journal has recently published a compilation of twelve of our best transcribed interviews. To purchase The Tiferet Talk Interviews book, please click here.

  Join us for a dynamic conversation about poetry, translation, and teaching with Richard Jeffrey Newman. Newman is the author of the poetry collection The Silence Of Men; the translator of two masterpieces of 13th century Iranian poetry, Selec­tions from Saadi’s Gulis­tan and Selec­tions from Saadi’s Bus­tan, and translator of The Teller of Tales, a portion of the Shahnameh, the Persian national epic. He is also co-translator, with Professor John Moyne, of A Bird in the Gar­den of Angels, a selec­tion of work by Rumi. As well, Newman serves as Per­sian Arts Festival’s Lit­er­ary Arts Direc­tor, co-curates the monthly Shab-e She’r (Night of Persian Poetry) at the Bowery Poetry Club, sits on the advi­sory boards of The Trans­la­tion Project and Jack­son Heights Poetry Fes­ti­val, and is a speaker with the New York Council for the Humanities.   He is an Associate Professor of English at Nassau Community College. Tiferet Journal has recently published a compilation of twelve of our best transcribed interviews. To purchase The Tiferet Talk Interviews book, please click here.

Please join us for a conversation about poetry, editing, and translation with Tony Barnstone. Barnstone is the recipient of many awards, including a Pushcart Prize, the Paumanok Poetry Award, the Randall Jarrell Poetry Prize, and the Pablo Neruda Prize in Poetry. He is the author, editor, and translator of over a dozen books, including collections of poems and writings about poetry. His poetry collections are Impure, Sad Jazz: Sonnets, The Golem of Los Angeles, and Tongue of War, a collection of dramatic monologues set in the Pacific during the Second World War. Yusef Komunyakaa calls Barnstone's Impure "...a mantra of what is meant and what is dreamt." Tiferet Journal has recently published a compilation of twelve of our best transcribed interviews. To purchase The Tiferet Talk Interviews book, please click here.    

  Please join us on 1/9/12 at 7 pm EST for a conversation about consciousness; the nature of existence; and healing the mind, body, and spirit. Our guest, Jason Shulman, is the founder of A Society of Souls training in Integrated Kabbalistic Healing, IM/personal Movement and the Work of Return. Shulman, who has been authorized to teach the Dharma as well, is on the faculties of the New York Open Center, the Esalen Institute, and the Omega Institute. He's also a member of the Professional Advisory Board of the Center for Spirituality and Psychotherapy of the National Institute for the Psychotherapies.Shulman is the author of The Instruction Manual for Receiving God and Kabbalistic Healing: a Path to an Awakened Soul.

  Please join us  for an interview with Croatian American writer Josip Novakovich. Novakovich is the author of three short story collections (Yolk, Salvation and Other Disasters, Infidelities: Stories of War and Lust), the novel April Fool's Day,  two collections of narrative essays (Apricots from Chernobyl, Plum Brandy), and two textbooks (Writing Fiction Step by Step, Fiction Writer's Workshop). He is the recipient of the Whiting Writer's Award, a Guggenheim fellowship, two fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, an award from the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and an American Book Award. He's been anthologized in Best American Poetry, Pushcart Prize, and O.Henry Prize Stories. Kirkus Review calls him "the best American short story writer of the decade". Tiferet Journal has recently published a compilation of twelve of our best transcribed interviews. To purchase The Tiferet Talk Interviews book, please click here.