Interview with Nora Gold

An Exclusive Interview for The Seaboard Review

Dr. Nora Gold is the prize-winning author of five books and the recipient of several awards, including a Canadian Jewish Literary Award and a Vine Canadian Jewish Book Award. Her writing has been praised by Publishers Weekly, Cynthia Ozick, Dara Horn, and Alice Munro, and has received international acclaim. A former professor, Gold is the founder and editor of the prestigious literary journal Jewish Fiction, which has published 590 stories originally written in 21 languages and has readers in 140 countries. Gold is active on social media, especially LinkedIn, with over 100,000 followers. noragold.com

TSR: Tell us about your background, education, employment, etc.

I was born and raised in a culture-loving, intellectual home in Montreal. For high school, I attended a “free school” that encouraged individuality, creative expression, and the questioning of social norms. At university, I studied humanities, social sciences, and social work, and after working as a social worker for several years, I earned a doctorate and became a professor. I spent ten years in academia before leaving to write fiction full-time.

TSR: Tell us about the format of In Sickness and In Health/Yom Kippur in a Gym.

This book is a flip book (also known as a dos-à-dos or a tête-bêche). In Sickness and In Health/Yom Kippur in a Gym is comprised of two novellas, and being a flip book, each of these novellas has its own cover (with the two covers positioned upside down from each other). It’s a wonderful format, and I love that it creates equality between the two novellas, rather than one of them getting relegated to second fiddle. I am delighted that Michael Mirolla at Guernica Editions suggested this format, and that Guernica’s David Moratto designed two such beautiful covers.

TSR: Why did you write this book?

With In Sickness and In Health, I wanted to write a work of fiction about the challenges faced by many women as a result of the sexism and ageism in the medical profession. Lily, the middle-aged protagonist in this novella, suffers from an illness that no one can understand; still, all of the male physicians she consults dismiss it as insignificant and imply that her sickness is merely psychosomatic. This has serious negative effects on Lily’s health, both physical and mental, her marriage, and her life as a whole. As a longstanding feminist interested in issues of women’s health (and as someone who has done research in this area), I’ve observed many times – in real life – situations like Lily’s, and I thought this would be worth writing a novella about.

Yom Kippur in a Gym was inspired by my experience of attending Yom Kippur services, for over two decades, in a gym. Year after year I spent Yom Kippur surrounded by hundreds of people, sometimes over a thousand, most of whom I didn't know. Often I found myself gazing at these strangers and wondering who they were and what they were really thinking about. Were they worrying about money? Their health? Their love life? I was curious about this especially during the last hour of Yom Kippur, when, according to tradition, our fate is inscribed for the coming year. This is a unique moment emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually, and I wanted to explore it fictionally. So this moment and this setting gave birth to this novella.

TSR: I read recently that it is very difficult to get short fiction collections published, as publishers are reluctant to take them on. Has that been your experience?

No, it hasn’t. I had no trouble finding a publisher for either of my short fiction books: Marrow and Other Stories (published in 1998) or In Sickness and In Health/Yom Kippur in a Gym (published a few months ago). In fact, I think shorter forms of fiction may now be gaining in popularity, among other reasons because of our shortened attention span due to digital reading – a phenomenon described in Maryanne Wolf’s book, Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World. As a result, some publishers seem to be embracing short fiction now more than ever before. My publisher, Guernica, has always welcomed novellas, and happily, they’ll be publishing another novella of mine in 2026, called Doubles.

TSR: If you could give one piece of advice to an unpublished author, what would it be?

Apart from encouraging beginning authors to persevere (which is essential in our line of work), I would advise them to separate the editing process from the writing itself. In other words: Don’t edit yourself as you go along. Just write, let it flow, and edit it later. Otherwise, you can get paralyzed.

TSR: How do you process and deal with negative book reviews?

I haven’t gotten too many of these, fortunately, but when I have, I’ve found perspective and comfort in recalling how some of the writers and composers I most admire have been disdained or misunderstood by their contemporaries, and also that scathing reviews have been written about some of the greatest works of literature and music ever created. This reminds me how subjective, flawed, and fashion-bound a book review can be, and also that it is sometimes motivated by factors that have nothing to do with the work itself.

TSR: What is the most difficult part of your writing process?

It is not the writing itself that is most difficult for me; it’s finding the solitude and the large blocks of time that I need in order to write. I have many obligations, personal and professional (on the professional side, my journal Jewish Fiction is particularly demanding of my time), and these interfere with my writing more often than I’d like.

TSR: Please tell us about Jewish Fiction.

Jewish Fiction is a literary journal that I founded in 2010 and have edited ever since. It was back then, and still is now, the only English-language journal (either print or online) devoted exclusively to publishing Jewish-themed fiction, and to date we’ve published 590 works of fiction that were either written in English or translated into English from 20 languages, but never before published in English. About 30% of the stories in our journal are translations, and these were the inspiration for, and the source of, the book I edited that came out ten months ago, called 18: Jewish Stories Translated From 18 Languages. Jewish Fiction, incidentally, is not a journal only for Jewish readers; it is enjoyed by, and accessible to, anyone who loves great stories. We currently have readers in 140 countries.

Right now is a very exciting time at Jewish Fiction, with big changes happening. A week from now we will be launching our new website (at our new home: jewishfiction.com; until then we are at jewishfiction.net). People will soon be able to search our archive to find stories on 50 specific themes (such as bar mitzvah, Holocaust, Chanukah), or by the original language in which the stories were written (Turkish, Albanian, Dutch, and 17 others). So Jewish Fiction will continue, as before, to be a first-rate literary journal, but now it will also be a valuable cultural/educational resource for lovers of both Jewish fiction and world fiction, as well as for scholars and students.

TSR: What book has caught your eye recently?

I recently finished one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read: The Known World by Edward P. Jones. It is about a Black slaveowner in Virginia during the Civil War period, and it’s amazing.

Thank you, Nora, for taking the time to have this email interview!

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