Where is home? What does home mean? For memoirist, essayist and writing coach Jennifer Lang, that question takes a while to unravel. In her early 20s she married a man from a very different background and lifestyle, and their life path has been full of choices and dilemmas. These are the subject of her collection, Places We Left Behind. I’ll let her explain.
It’s a love story with a lot of conflict — inner and personal, marital and geopolitical—about home. It’s a memoir minus all the connective tissue. It’s sparse and yet spans 22 years. It’s playful yet tells an intense, intimate story. The story of an American woman (me) and a French man (husband) who meet through a mutual French friend in the Jerusalem hills in their early 20s, who fall hard and fast for each other, who marry despite major differences (he is Sabbath observant and wants to stay in Israel while she is secular and dreams of rooting in her country of birth). It’s the story of commitment and compromise, of voice and identity, of faith and of family.
You have another collection coming up, Landed: A Yogi’s memoir in pieces & poses. What a charming concept.
Landed starts where Places ends and traces my seven-year journey — both on and off the yoga mat —reckoning with my adopted country, inherited religion, midlife hormones and imminent empty nest. After returning to Israel in 2011, I was restless and wrestling: stay or go? In the marriage, in the country. As I distanced myself from my husband’s modern-Orthodox lifestyle and as I taught and practised yoga, I reconnected with the woman I once was. Then, in our seventh year, the first time we’d stayed anywhere longer than six, I understood the words so many yoga teachers had been offering for the past two decades: root down into the ground, stay true to yourself. Finally, after decades of moving across coasts, countries, and continents, I understood home is more about who you are than where you live.
Tell me about the significance of yoga in your life.
I recently turned 58 and realise that I’ve been practising yoga for almost half my life. The first time I stepped on a mat was shortly after my 30th birthday. Were I to add up how many hours I’ve spent on a mat, it would probably be in the thousands. All to say, I don’t know who I’d be without it. Yoga — the breathing techniques, the poses, the mind frame — has seen me through pregnancies and post-partum recoveries, several subsequent surgeries and emotional stressors.
Are there any crossovers with writing? We often find the physical and the mental are surprisingly intertwined.
Yoga and writing are both practices; each day I get to the mat or to my desk is different. Some good, easier, smoother, more productive, others less.
You have an MFA. Was that the beginning of a big change for you?
It was definitely a turning point. I’d started teaching writing classes five years before grad school, but those two years of studying craft and workshopping cemented my identity as writing instructor and gave me a much-needed dose of self-confidence along with a supportive writing community.
You’ve also published Crack, a collection of essays about relocating to Israel.
Crack is a teeny-tiny digital micro-chapbook comprised of nine experimental shorts, five of which had previously been published and four had never seen and are quite daring (in form). Like Places, it weaves between poetry & prose, the everyday and the extraordinary. It’s available on Ghost City Press’s website. Half of all proceeds will be donated to Tuesday’s Children for families who have been forever changed by terrorism, military conflict or mass violence.
Your published work so far is non-fiction. Would you ever write fiction?
After Landed launches next autumn, I intend to take a break from nonfiction and try writing historical fiction. Truth-telling has gotten me in trouble and helped me resolve so much inner turmoil. Therapy helped too.
I notice one of the classes you teach is Writing Our Siblings, which is an interesting micro-corner of memoiring. What made you decide this subject would repay close study?
My only sibling stopped speaking to me because of something I wrote seven years ago. I’m not sorry about what I wrote but did learn that when writing about any family member, we must be mindful of and honour how they might read our words. The essay I shared with him was about my loss of home base, but all he read was that my father’s betrayal was the be-all, end-all of our family of origin.
The idea for this one-off workshop came on the heels of a workshop called Writing Our (M)other, Our Monster, Ourselves, led by Nina Boug Lichtenstein, who sat in my seat at my table with my students in Tel Aviv. It was powerful, emotional, intense. The energy in the room was electric. We all wanted more. I thought about how Nina and I each have one sibling and such different relationships with them. I thought about how many friends have sibling strife and others are tightly connected. When Nina mentioned returning to Israel in August, I proposed we co-teach it and was surprised when all 10 spots filled since it’s still summer and so many people are traveling.
A previous workshop of yours, which I found intriguing, is writing with colour, co-hosted with an image and makeover consultant. What made you put them together?
I partnered with a British friend in Israel, Wendy Lehmann, who is a stylist and colourist. We often talk about colours within the context of both writing and fashion and both admire each other’s work ethic and creative endeavours. One day, I floated the idea of colour in clothes and as character, in story, and together, we ran with it.
You’re an editor for Brevity, the online essay magazine (I love Brevity!). What do you look for in an ideal Brevity piece?
I am looking for smart, unique lens, never-told perspective, strong voice. Unfortunately, there is no formula. And, as we all know, reading is subjective. But as an example of what I consider solid writing with phenomenal details and a full story it’s Hospitality by Shahnaz Habib (which predates my time with Brevity ).
What other jobs have you done?
Before Israel Writers Studio and the MFA and the books, I wrote for national magazines and websites. Before that, I copy edited and worked in marketing and public affairs for different non-profits. Before that, I taught English to car mechanics at Renault garage in Haifa because, in 1990, as a new immigrant in Israel with a bachelor’s degree and no clear profession, there wasn’t much else to do.
How did you find your way to personal essays and micro-memoirs? Obviously this is your medium now – why does it feel like home?
In January 2018, I enrolled in a flash class with Kathy Fish. For 10 days, we responded to thought-provoking prompts with strict wordcounts. There I read brief, powerful, complete stories that gave me goosebumps. I got encouraging feedback to write about my little Israeli life in flash. Writing with word limits helped me find the core of my stories, something I often buried under excessive, flabby words and weak verbs. Writing long now feels cumbersome and flat, and I cannot imagine going back to long prose.
What are you working on now?
When I’m not doing everything in my power to promote Places, I am rereading Landed to tighten it, fill in holes, get it in tip-top shape before starting the whole journey-to-publication process anew for its release in October 2024. For the past nine months I’ve morphed from writer to publicist and it is a full-time job.
Places We Left Behind is published by Vine Leaves Press – find it here. Find Jennifer on Facebook and her website
There’s a lot more about writing in my Nail Your Novel books – find them here. If you’re curious about my own work, find novels here and my travel memoir here. And if you’re curious about what’s going on at my own writing desk, here’s my latest newsletter. You can subscribe to future updates here.
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