Interview with Orit Rehany, author of A River of Tears, a River of Hope

ABOUT A RIVER OF TEARS, THE RIVER OF HOPE

Title: A River of Tears, the River of Hope
Genre: School & Teaching/Inspirational
Author: Orit Rehany
Publisher: AuthorHouse
EBook: 151 pages
Release Date: December 17, 2013

 A River of Tears The River of Hope centers on the saga of the Two Torah Scrolls, and of an fluent and thriving community living peacefully for 2600 years until World War II and the events of Nazism, anti-Semitism and hatred took place in the ancient region known as the Cradle of Civilization, or modern days Iraq. The creation of Iraq by the British installed an unsuccessful attempt at Monarchy. The results were staggering and ultimately ended in the displacement of an entire community to Israel and the first settlement of the community in this newly created State. A River of Tears The River of Hope follows the enchanting and fascinating Murad family. The Murad family brought to Israel a proud heritage to share with the world including the two Torah Scrolls of their beloved father and grandfather, Rabbi Ezra Murad. Rabbi Murad’s two Torah Scrolls traveled with the family to Israel, where he was rightfully recognized as an important and impactful role models. His name shined within the community in Baghdad, and his memory and the valuable Two Torah Scrolls continued to stand out in Israel. While settling in Israel the Murad family showed us the most valuable elements of hope, drive, and determination as they continued to thrive in Israel and Canada. They continued to believe in their abilities to succeed. Indeed, as their lives changed and they relocated, the Murad family always maintained focus and the belief in their ability to survive and flourish. A River of Tears The River of Hope will welcome readers into the history of the Murad family and their amazing journey from a world filled with oppression and tyranny, to one supported by acceptance and support.

AuthorHouse

How did you come up with the title of your book?

The biggest inspiration I got when considering the title of my book were the fond memories I had from the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers while living in Baghdad as a child. Those memories were of family outings,  picnics,  fishing,  boating or swimming. I was the only girl getting swimming lessons at that time, at the age of 7. The Rivers were a vital element in the life of the population. At the time of the mass immigration in 1951, the two Torah Scrolls were transported to Israel. When thinking about the Scrolls, I wanted their voyage to their new home to be through the river. The departure from Baghdad was with a lot  of tears,  HOPE is always replacing the TEARS. 

What is your writing environment like?

Writing is a highly competitive occupation. Graham Greene, one of the most prolific English language author of the last century, famously said that the secret of writing was sitting down in a chair for hours at a time and putting pen to paper and the bulk of the work lay, in fact, in re-writing.

I could relate to that statement. If I could sit down without interruption would be ideal environment. I am though, able to finish one section at a time, while sitting down. Since a lot of thinking goes in the process of writing, I prefer to take brakes to enable the flow of thinking take hold. 

What are some of the best tools available today for writers?

Richard Back once said, “A professional writer is an amateur who did not quite.”

There are so many benefits from the digital age, some of t he best apps, tools and communities for writers and journalists.

Bambuser –  is providing interactive live video broadcasting service. For  streaming live video from mobile   cell phone or webcom to the internet, allows you to share your work via social media.

iAWriter – “It is tiny but it is huge.” It interacts with icloud and Dropbox to share writer’s documents and make them available on all documents devices. Features including Focus Mode and certified text editing, plus the official sites writer support network, allows uses to focus on individual aspects of text, or editing process.

Wikipanion – is designed for ios, offers direct access to Wikipedia servers, offering outomated search results while you type. Available in 75 languages.

Using Promptes – This app offers prompt generaters jto keep juices flowing and with text. Prompts available in inline or offline mode. An Internet connection is no longer required.

TOOLS

Evernote is a suite of software and services designed for note taking and archiving. A "note" can be a piece of formatted text, a full webpage or webpage excerpt, a photograph, a voice memo, or a handwritten "ink" note. Notes can also have file attachments. Notes can be sorted into folders, then tagged, annotated, edited, given comments, searched and exported as part of a notebook.

Accessible from almost every device, Evernote allows you to capture anything from drawings to web clipping and make it researchable from your laptop, cell phone, or a camera

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What inspires you to write?

I’m most inspired by things I face and work through in my life experiences. Those lessons learned are perfect for writing.

 When it comes to history, wisdom of our sages and ancestors, sharing life experiences, sharing what is wrong or right, sharing my message to the world to benefit and help others to achieve their life dreams, erase their negativities and learn how to overcome their challenges   is a great idea to translate into a book.

Rabbi Ezra Murad and his two Torah Scrolls always fascinated me I was committed to accelerated his name and who he was to the world. Allow readers to learn about different culture that does not exist today. This served a great inspiration when writing this book.

Did you learn anything while writing this book?

Writing a book is part of self discovery. It takes an enormous persistence and discipline to not fall off the cliff and keep going. Also, You will need  enough readers discovering your book to make it a bestseller.

 I try not to look down,  and not  let any annoying critical voice inside me – just win, keep going!! The hours I spent staring at the walls, searching and researching, the days I spent thinking what is best to write next, how I can improve it, what message I intend to convey. Truthfully, I had the feeling that I am going to produce a very good book. Demanding of myself is just proved to be excellent contribution to the book quality. Besides, throughout the hard work and research I have done, I learned so much about each character in the book. It was important for me to discover my identity and roots, and I found them in the personalities I presented. I found out that my character, good or bad, have genes, and discovered similar genes among my family members. I discovered that digging and unearthing characters can be applied  to myself. Self discovery journey was amazingly interesting and necessary.