 Red Room Writer Profile
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Sherry Jones's Blog
November 7, 2009
- Dear Reader, What’s in a name? If Army Major Malik Nadal Hasan’s name were “Smith,” we’d be talking about him as a soldier who snapped under pressure, a lone gunman whose fear of deployment to Afghanistan sent him over the deep end -- as fear tends to do. Predictably, however, within minutes after we learned that the gunman in Thursday’s Fort Hood, Texas massacre was named ...
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November 5, 2009
- Dear Reader,These days, I find juggling is a useful skill for furthering my career. Filling the blanks left by my publisher's decision to focus on national publicity for "The Sword of Medina" and let me handle the rest could fill all my time. I'm setting up readings and booksignings, blogging, making videos, searching the Web daily for new articles, reviews, and blogs to post on my ...
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November 2, 2009
- I was alarmed by news reports of two Chicago men arrested in connection with a Pakistani plot to attack Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard and Flemming Rose, the culture editor at Jyllands-Posten. One of the men allegedly wrote in a Yahoo! chat that he was “disposed toward violence” toward these men and toward me because of my books, “The Jewel of Medina” and “The Sword of ...
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November 2, 2009
- Dear Reader,Self-censorship continues to be a topic about which we should all be concerned. Please read my article, newly published in New Humanist magazine, here: http://newhumanist.org.uk/2163/our-own-worst-enemy. Keep reading, Sherry
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October 14, 2009
- The anxiety set in about two weeks ago.With publication of my second book, "The Sword of Medina," coming Oct. 15, I started getting fidgety.I'm not sure why. I have theories, yes, plenty of them. I'd just come back from a book tour in Europe, where I was feted and my books celebrated, and where I worked non-stop for two weeks in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Belgrade, and Novi Sad, Serbia, ...
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September 28, 2009
- Dear Reader,Traveling to foreign countries, being on TV and the radio, it all sounds so glamorous! And it is ... but it's also very hard work.I arrived in Stockholm at about 4 p.m., to greet my publisher Shadi Bitar of Earbooks, waiting for me bearing a sign with his own name on it (a security precaution). After a warm handshake he drove me to the Rival Hotel, a truly wonderful place (especially ...
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August 5, 2009
- Dear Reader,Reading Jess Wells' Red Room blog posting on self-discipline, I found myself a bit puzzled -- at first. In it, she talks of self-discipline, of setting aside specific time to write every Sunday and refusing all other offers, including Afternoon Delight with a frisky lover.My problem, I thought, is the opposite. When I wrote "The Jewel of Medina" and its sequel, "The ...
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August 4, 2009
- Dear Reader,"But what he, the writer, is asking, is impossible. Why should... there be anyone else who comprehends what he is trying to do?"This quote comes from Doris Lessing's 1971 introduction to her magnificent novel, "The Golden Notebook," which I am currently reading.It struck a chord with me because I recently received a letter from a Muslim man -- a Pakistani Muslim -- ...
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July 17, 2009
- Dear Reader, As author of "The Jewel of Medina," published by Beaufort Books last fall, and its sequel, "The Sword of Medina," debuting in the U.S. in October 2009, I've done quite a bit of reading on the topic of veiling. Veiling debuted in Byzantine Christian society long before Islam came along. Aristocratic Byzantine women did not choose to wear the veil but were required ...
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July 7, 2009
- Dear Reader,Something new happens almost every day regarding my debut novel, "The Jewel of Medina," and its forthcoming sequel, "The Sword of Medina."Today, news outlets around the world are carrying the story that the three men convicted of setting fire to the home office of Gibson Square Books, the London publisher who had planned to publish "The Jewel of Medina," ...
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June 29, 2009
- Dear Reader,I am a huge fan of Alice Hoffman's novels. Like the critic Roberta Silman, who recently reviewed Ms. Hoffman's latest novel, The Story Sisters, in the Boston Globe, I came to love Ms. Hoffman's books first by reading Illumination Night, which I admired as much for the writing as for the tale. Nothing about the latest Twitter scandal, in which Ms. Hoffman supposedly ranted at Ms. ...
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June 23, 2009
- Dear Reader,I am sick of being called an "Orientalist." As if being interested in another culture were a bad thing. And, as I've pointed out ad nauseam, "The Jewel of Medina" doesn't exoticize the Middle East. To the contrary, readers of my book will find that Muhammad and his followers lived grueling lives of dust, heat, and near starvation.The reason for my gripe today is a ...
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June 20, 2009
- Dear Reader,I awoke this morning to dreadful news on two fronts: One, the city of Spokane contends that the death of a schizophrenic man hog-tied by police -- a well known local who was holding only a plastic pop bottle at the time, and whose last words were, "All I wanted was a Snickers" -- the death of Otto Zehm was his fault. As a result, I'm going to join a protest next week in ...
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June 19, 2009
- Dear Reader, Responses to my most recent post have me feeling like a whiner, even though my intention was to talk about how reading can inspire a writer. Lest I be accused of ingratitude, let me pass along the remarkable, fabulous highlights of my life since the controversy over THE JEWEL OF MEDINA catapulted me to fame, or infamy, depending on your point of view. In August, the story of my ...
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June 18, 2009
- Dear Reader, Controversy continues over “The Jewel of Medina” — first the question of UK distribution and then a small protest at a book fair in Armenia, where the novel has “record sales,” according to a rough translation of an article — and reviews are starting to come in of “The Sword of Medina” (so far, very positive). I’m fuming over another writer’s online boasting of ...
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