Brandeis National Committee’s Annual Book & Author Luncheon
I’m looking forward to being one of three authors to present my novel, The Unexpected Connection on November 7, 2019 at the Brandeis National Committee’s Annual Book and Author Luncheon. Included will be an opportunity for a book-signing. The event will take place at the Sunningdale Country Club, Scarsdale, New York. I’ll be presenting with Lynda Cohen Loigman and Kitty Zeldis. This is my first novel whereas the other two authors have published previously.
I’m really excited to be doing this. I’m hoping the upcoming event will open more doors for me. Since this event is only for Brandeis Alumni Women I thought I’d share my presentation with you. If you could give me any other suggestions I’d be most appreciative.
The following is my presentation:
I feel quite honored to stand before you and share this day with Lynda Cohen Loigman and Kitty Zeldis. I would like to let you in on a secret of mine. I had always wanted to attend Brandeis University. As a high school senior my average was in the mid-nineties and I had excellent SAT scores. My obstacle was my mother! She wouldn’t allow me to apply to an out of town-college. Years later after raising four children while I was attending a high school graduation party for my second eldest son, she says in front of my friends that she didn’t allow me to attend out of town-college because I’d be promiscuous. Was that her own guilt surfacing…or is that how she might have acted?
Seriously, I do believe that things happen for reasons. How many of you agree with me? I also believe in living in the moment so I hold no grudges against my mother! However, I made sure my four children attended out of town colleges and sleep away camps. In turn, all five of my grandchildren enjoyed going to sleep away camps this past summer and I am sure will attend out of town colleges in the future!
Getting back to reasons…The fellow who stared at me on the bus on the way to college while I was wearing my red sorority pledge outfit wound up being my husband and my acting teacher in high school told me to check out the Speech department at Brooklyn College and I ultimately wound up a Speech/Language Pathologist. I taught speech on the college level and worked with the adolescent population with language impaired students my entire professional career. I often helped my students with their college essays and graduation speeches
At one point I recognized that I could also write for myself leading to two plays, Keep Walking, which had four successful staged readings, and Hide and Seek, my newest play, and of course my novel, The Unexpected Connection, that I soon will tell you about. I am now working on a children’s book about kindness. As an aside, years ago I listened to the late Frank McCourt talk about how most authors base their fiction on real events. Those words stayed with me to this day.
It was about fourteen years ago when my husband died unexpectedly and my mother passed away five hours later. I had a choice, be a woe is me person or move forward with my life. Victor Frankel, a neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor, summed it up perfectly and I quote, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—-to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstances, to choose one’s way—-Each moment is a choice…we can always choose how we respond…we each have a choice.
Ultimately, I chose to look for companionship and entered the world of dating. I subsequently shared my stories with the women at my hair salon and heard their interesting tales. Throughout my career I gravitated to working in high schools so many of my colleagues at work were single millennials. We discovered that we had so much in common, sharing similar dating adventures and misadventures. I began journaling the experiences which eventually led me to write my first novel, The Unexpected Connection.
It’s about an intergenerational friendship between a millennial, Vanessa, and a baby boomer, Michelle, as well as Vanessa’s grandmother, Felicia, who serves as a sounding board. Michelle is a widow who has to come to terms with her unexpected condition of widowhood. Next she has to decide how she will move forward with her life. Eventually, she determined she wanted companionship and chose to begin dating. Through her dating journey she gets in touch with the genuine Michelle.
Vanessa on the other hand had a different experience before meeting Michelle. She had broken up with her true love at the same time that she was let go from a job that sucked the life out of her. Fortunately, she had found another position soon after and decided to visit her grandmother in Florida where fortuitously she meets Michelle who also is on vacation.
I have always loved The Great Gatsy. That is why I have Vanessa as the narrator as she interacts with Michelle after reading chapters of her memoir. It is through these interactions that Vanessa learns so much from Michelle’s dating experiences and insights. These lessons help her understand that in life the only control we have is how we act and react. Additionally, one must love one self and value one’s self worth and choose not to let themselves be denigrated regardless of age, marital status, gender, or sexual choices. I believe this is a very relevant message for our times.
So I have to tell you, as a reader of The Unexpected Connection you will be sharing insights and perhaps identify, commiserate, or have a chuckle or two. In fact, a fellow classmate in a playwriting class for retirees said reading my novel opened her eyes to the fact that she can be friends with people of all ages, that she has to be true to herself, and she found the novel a fun read. My novel also appeared as one of 21 empowering books on women’s self-expression in ImproveHerHealth.com as well as being recognized in PrettyProgressive.com as one of 7 books a feminist should read.
So what does all this mean? We are living through changing times. We are all aware of the #Metoo Movement and the myriad of women coming forth with their accusations of harassments and abuses. When I think back to my college days when Brooklyn College’s acceptance average for women was in the mid 90’s and for the men 88%….How very discriminatory! When my first speech professor held back a grade of A because I wouldn’t go to bed with him…what chutzpah on his part but I am proud that I wasn’t intimidated but I told no one!… Or a male colleague in the first high school I worked at having accused me of taking a job away from a male because I was married to a dentist. I do remember saying to him, “you gotta be kidding,” but took no further action. Today, I am a different person..I would speak up!
Perhaps if my husband hadn’t died unexpectedly so many years ago my identification with the woes of women today wouldn’t be as real for me as they now are, but I hope that’s not the case! As a single widow in the dating world I have often been subjected to the cluelessness and insensitivity of the male as other dating women have also experienced. Interestingly, after a staged reading of Keep Walking, my play also addressing the dating world, a forty year old male who had just come out said he could identify with the dating tales that were enacted in my play! I thought that comment was very significant.
I often playfully address the dating world in my novel. (It is here I read excerpts…)
In my novel, never are men denigrated. The tales and interactions are more often than not humorous and enlightening for Vanessa and ultimately the reader. One doesn’t have to be a widow or dater to recognize that when facing challenges in one’s life one must work to come out whole and make one’s own choices. After all, the only control we have in life is how we choose to act and react. In essence, we are always on a life’s journey based on self-acceptance and being the truest person we can be.
So many books make fun of men and dating experiences and/or are self-help books, instead I chose to write a novel for my readers to identify, commiserate, or laugh with the two protagonists and to also recognize one’s own self-expression. Here is an example of Michelle’s reaction to stories told to her by her married friends.(The excerpt is read…)
I leave you with Vanessa’s impression… It is not about the destination but the road one follows!” I wish you all good luck, happiness, and health.
If you would like to find out more about me and my works please check out my website, denalevin.com.
THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO READ MY PRESENTATION. ANY FEEDBACK WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!