Where Do I Go by Beverly Magid | Guest Post | @BeverlyMagid ‏@HFVBT #WhereDoIGoBlogTour #HistoricalFiction #HistFic

Publication Date: October 9, 2017
BeWrite Press
Paperback & eBook; 138 Pages
Genre: Fiction/Historical/Jewish

Welcome to my turn on the blog tour for Where Do I Go.  My thanks to Amy of HF Virtual Blog Tours for the invitation to take part. For my turn today, I have a guest post from Beverly on her writing inspiration.

Writing Inspiration

by Beverly Magid

All three of my novels feature female protagonists, ordinary women in extraordinary circumstances. That’s my overall general inspiration, but of course each of the books had their specific, particular moment when I decided to write them. Starting out years ago as a journalist, then a publicist in entertainment, people were always pushing me to write a Hollywood story. Be my own version of Jackie Collins, but entertainment was my job, a fun one, but work nevertheless. I loved talking to John Lennon, or seeing Cary Grant conduct a press conference, but I had no desire to go behind the scenes and do a gossipy kind of novel. And to be truthful, I didn’t know any deep dark secrets which would lend themselves to that type of book.

What interested me is what keeps a woman strong when faced with obstacles. Life is always throwing us a curve and it’s how we handle that problem which makes us the person we are. I had a very early draft of a story about two young people during World War 2 on the home front of Brooklyn. I couldn’t get the character, Judith, out of my mind and when I was offered the chance to be a part of a workshop led by author, Janet Fitch (WHITE OLEANDER) I jumped at the opportunity. From that workshop came FLYING OUT OF BROOKLYN, the story of Judith, unhappy in her marriage, unfulfilled as a woman, meeting again the boy she had a crush on during high school, now a returning wounded veteran, as tormented as she was, with a very guilty secret of his own.

Then, later, I was given a tape my father had made before his death, the story of his growing up in Russia, during the very turbulent times of Cossack attacks, peasant unrest and pogroms against the Jews in villages and cities across the country. He described how his mother tried to protect him, especially during the catastrophic flu epidemic that swept through the world, killing millions. It was that image of my grandmother doing whatever she could to keep my father, who was her youngest, safe from illness, that spurred me on to research that time and build my fictional story, SOWN IN TEARS, about Leah who survives a pogrom in 1905, and is left alone to protect her children. Plus of course I had to add a forbidden romance and many other problems which poor had Leah to confront and hopefully overcome.

The third and current novel, WHERE DO I GO, was inspired by a question from a reader, “what happens next to Leah?” I didn’t plan to continue the story, but it got me thinking about where she goes and what happens to her as an immigrant in America in 1908, still poor, still struggling, but determined to make a better life for herself and her boys. She’s also determined to find a bit of beauty in life, and perhaps a bit of love again. Leah refuses to give in to the horrific conditions she sees around her and she has to fight back.

|  About the Book   |

It’s 1908 and Leah and her boys have immigrated to New York’s Lower East Side to live with her brothers after surviving a pogrom in their Russian village. She determined to find a home in America but the conditions are harsher than she expected. The garment sweat shops are brutal to work in and it’s essential that her son Benny works after school to help with expenses. Unbeknownst to her he runs errands for the local bookie/gangster. Life isn’t what Leah hoped for, but she’s a fighter and not willing to accept the awful conditions at Wollowitz’s Factory. She’s on a journey to find her own voice, to find a place for herself and her sons, to find a little beauty and romance in her life.

|   About the Author   |

Beverly Magid, before writing her novel, was a journalist and an entertainment and celebrity PR executive, who interviewed many luminaries, including John Lennon, Jim Croce and the Monty Python gang, and as a publicist represented clients in music, tv and film, ranging from Whoopi Goldberg, John Denver and Dolly Parton to Tom Skerritt, Martin Landau, Kathy Ireland and Jacqueline Bisset.

Beverly is a longtime west coast resident who still considers herself a New Yorker. Among the social issues she’s passionate about is literacy and she worked with KorehLA to mentor elementary children in reading. Also she has been an advocate for Jewish World Watch, an organization dedicated to working against genocide and to aid the victims of war atrocities. On a lighter side, she is also a volunteer at the Los Angeles Zoo, monitoring animal behavior for their Research Department.

She is a news and political junkie who supports environmental, animal and human rights issues. She believes most passionately that “We must remain vigilant to the those who would erode the rights of people around the world and work to defeat them.”

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