Rebecca Wolf
Author Interview - Rebecca Wolf
Author of Alive and Beating
Inspired by a true story, "Alive and Beating" follows six people from diverse backgrounds and neighborhoods throughout Jerusalem, all desperately in need of organ transplants, on the day their lives will forever be changed. In a place where ancient divides often seem insurmountable, these six characters-- Leah, a Hasidic young woman; Yael, a daughter of Holocaust survivors; Hoda, a Palestinian hairdresser; David, an Iraqi restaurant owner; Severin, a Catholic priest; and Youssef and Yosef, two teenage boys whose fates are inextricably linked---are united despite their differences by a shared goal of becoming healthy and finding meaning in their lives.
Author Interview - Rebecca Wolf
Author I draw inspiration from:
I modeled my book on “Hiroshima,” by John Hersey, a renowned journalist who covered battlefields from the Pacific to Europe, and one of my favorite writers. When Hersey wrote “Hiroshima,” it was actually a 31,000 word article that was published in The New Yorker and took up the entire week’s issue of the magazine. “Hiroshima” was unique in that Hersey combined literary storytelling with reporting as he focused on the lives of six survivors of the atomic bomb rather than providing broad details of the catastrophic event. As a former journalist, this reporting/storytelling combination is my ideal way to write. I want to tell a story simply, but with enough emotion for readers to connect with my characters.
Author Interview - Rebecca Wolf | Author I Draw Inspiration From
Favorite place to read a book:
On the beach, with my family around me and all of us engrossed in books.
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with:
I'd love to be stuck in an elevator with Jack Ryan, from Tom Clancy's books ("Patriot Games", "The Hunt for Red October," etc.). I've always been drawn to the world of spies, particularly within the Middle East, and especially in the underground channels in which Jack Ryan worked. I don't have poker face, so I would ask Jack how he managed to maintain his cover so perfectly all the time.
Author Interview - Rebecca Wolf | Book Character I’d Like to be Stuck in an Elevator With
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author:
I had planned to become a journalist - hopefully a war correspondent - not a fiction writer. While I was in Barnard College, I worked as both a reporter and an editor on the Columbia Daily Spectator, and during my semester abroad I was an intern reporter for United Press International. I majored in political science with a concentration in terrorism, and in London, studied in the War Studies Department of King’s College.
But it turns out being a war correspondent isn’t a great job for a young woman, so after graduation I got a job on Wall Street instead, working as a financial reporter for Dow Jones Newswires, which is the wire service of The Wall Street Journal.
Once I became a mother, I decided to stay home with my kids, and the only writing I did was some light freelance work, mostly about parenting and Jewish topics. About 10 years ago, with my children all in school full-time, I started thinking about writing a book, and that book had to be about my friend Alisa, who was killed in a suicide bombing when we were 20 years old, and whose family heroically donated her organs.
My book is a tribute to Alisa, but ultimately I decided to write a fiction novel, rather than tell her true story, so that I could create a diverse cast of characters. It was important to me that my book carry a message of shared humanity, and so I needed organ recipients from all walks of life.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook:
I'm a librarian's daughter, so as you can imagine, I'm constantly reorganizing my bookcases. I love how hardcover looks on a shelf, but it's heavy to carry on vacation. The opposite for paperbacks: they are a great weight but don't look as classy. I don't read e-books or listen to audiobooks. I just love the feeling of turning a page.
The last book I read:
"When We See You Again," by Rachel Goldberg Polin. This book is by the mother of Hersh Goldberg Polin, a young man who was executed by Hamas in a tunnel in Gaza after he had been held hostage there for 328 days. He had been kidnapped by Hamas terrorists from the Nova Music Festival on October 7, 2023. Rachel Goldberg Polin's memoir is a powerful testament to the love a parent feels for a child. She traces her path from her private, normal life, (or "beige," as she says) to the public stage she was forced to stand on day after day as she fought to bring home her son. Her grief comes through the pages and it's a very hard read, but a very important one.
Author Interview - Rebecca Wolf | The Last Book I Read
Pen & paper or computer:
Pen and paper for lists, but computer for writing. I probably delete things too quickly, but now thanks to Google Drive I can at least go back and check an earlier draft if I think I might have gotten the words right the first time.
Book character I think I’d be best friends with:
I'd love to be friends with Molly Weasley, the mother of Ron Weasley in J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" books. She's the kind of mom I try to be (although I don't have magical powers). She's warm and welcoming, supportive and encouraging, and seems to have a generally happy disposition. Friends like that inspire me to become a better version of myself.
Author Interview - Rebecca Wolf | Book Character I’d be Best Friends With
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a:
If I weren't an author, I'd be a therapy dog trainer. I don't have a dog - yet - but I love dogs and I've seen firsthand how therapy dogs help people. I'd love to train a dog to be able to visit nursing homes and hospitals, and to bring smiles where needed.
Favorite decade in fashion history:
I loved the fashion in the 1950s, where women wore cinched dresses and hats and heels (as seen on "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel." I think I would hate to dress that way because it seems very uncomfortable, but the women did look beautiful.
Place I’d most like to travel:
I'd love to go to Australia. I'm a big tennis fan, and the Australian Open looks like such a fun tournament. Of course, I'd also love to travel and see the whole country, but I would have to time it for late January to coincide with the tennis.
My signature drink:
There's nothing like fresh, cold lemonade on a hot summer day, or a freezing cold Coke Zero in a glass bottle.
Favorite artist:
I'm a big fan of Yayoi Kusama. She's the world's oldest living artist, and she makes art every day! She's an incredible inspiration and role model and reminds me that I should never stop being creative.
Number one on my bucket list:
I would love to learn how to play the drums.
Anything else you'd like to add:
The part fiction writing that scared me was: what happens next? In journalism, we can only write what we see and hear. Opinion writers can speculate what they think might happen in the future, but regular reporters like me don’t editorialize (or at least, we didn’t use to - let’s save that for another article about the death of true journalism). So my family and friends became very involved in plot development, until I reached the writing zone that I had only heard about but never believed truly existed: the characters took on lives of their own.
It’s hard to explain, because it makes no sense. How could a character that is a figment of my imagination lead the story line? I don’t know, but it happened. For example, I tried to give my character Hoda, who is a single mother, a nice boyfriend. I spent a lot of time developing their backstory and writing their dialogue. I loved this guy - he was sweet and caring and good-looking. But at a certain point, it became clear that Hoda didn’t want a boyfriend. She had too much going on in her life and she just needed to focus on herself and her children. So I killed the boyfriend idea, deleted all those pages, and started writing anew.
At this point, my characters have become so real to me that when I go to Israel, I expect to meet them in the street!
Find more from the author:
@aliveandbeating - Instagram
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-wolf-69b4291b0/
https://www.facebook.com/rebecca.wolf.author
About Rebecca Wolf:
Rebecca Wolf
Rebecca Wolf is a former journalist whose fiction and essays have appeared in many
publications, including Apricity and Tablet. She is a volunteer writing tutor for PEN
America's Prison Writing Program, and she lived in Jerusalem as a foreign student before
attending Barnard College. She lives in New Jersey with her family.
