Becoming Emily Novak

This novel grew out of two of my stories, "On the Eighth Day" (published in Jewish Education News) and "I, Emily" (recorded on my CD, hear me out). I first met the characters in the summer of 1996, but I didn't begin what I think of as a conscious organic novel-writing process with them for another five years. I spent a year and a half working on it through my Master of Fine Arts program, feeling the challenges of delving into emotionally difficult subject matter on a fast-approaching deadline, and then continued developing it on its own timeline, creating writing groups as needed to help the process. The title is still a work-in-progress, but the book itself is solid. Next step: querying literary agents.

A Gender-Bending Picture Book

In a literature class during the fall of 2001 on children's picture books, I discovered that there were still no transgender picture books. I started wondering what a transgender children's picture book would/could/should be, and then started thinking about different progressive ways to present gender to little kids. For my final project I drafted a picture book of my own, sans pictures. Here it is (in PDF format). I think illustrating this could be a great independent project or thesis for a student photographer interested in the subject matter--if you're interested, let me know.