A Summer Change of Pace

Pursuant to intensive negotiations with Mrs Blogs and her deft legal team of Master & Master Blogs, I will not be blogging during my family vacation. There is a certain practical issue in as much as there will be limited wireless connection (or even electricity) in the rugged mountains of Northern California.

beautiful, majestic, a timeless testimony to the power of nature

Last year, the aforementioned legal team blindsided me when I whipped out my laptop in the middle of a beautiful redwood forest. “This is family time,” they complained. “You can’t just switch off and write” (a crime regularly occurring during the rest of the year).

After convening a face-to-face meeting around the picnic table, a compromise was reached: we would write a story together, about elves, dwarfs and noble quests. And so began a new adventure. From political, social activism fiction to the coming-of-age world of fantasy.

Not flattering, but the scene of the crime.

And so the Alliance Trilogy was born. Today, 95,000 words later, the first book is being critiqued by my extremely patient writer’s group (that while diverse, lacks fantasy junkies). Writing with my boys was an amazing trip and we are still learning as we edit and plan the next book (we are 10,000 words into Book 2). I write in intense spurts and this bothers them because I can churn out 8-10,000 words a day when I am in the zone and have a clear day to myself. Eating, sleeping – why?

While we are away on vacation, I want to repost (with updates) a series of blog posts that I wrote a couple of years ago. These are interviews with the characters from The Accidental Activist. I had a lot of fun doing this – there are no spoilers in the interviews, but it is an opportunity to share aspects of these characters on a deeper level. Also, given that the book was written in 1st person from Matt’s perspective, this gives the other characters a chance to share their thoughts. Oh, Point-of-View, I knew I would eventually find a way to wiggle out of your grasp!

I guess this is also an opportunity for me to spend a little more time with some very close friends who never succeeded in escaping the incarceration of The Accidental Activist’s book covers.

Enjoy and please excuse me. I’m going back to my elves…and my family.

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Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist (now available on Kindle) and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at http://www.alonshalev.com/and on Twitter (#alonshalevsf).

The Elves of Berkeley

I never believed in elves until I wrote a fantasy novel with my eldest son over the summer. Now they seem to be cropping up all over the place. Both my sons are desperate to get me hooked on a strategic game called Magic: The Gathering. I do love the art work and none more so than the elves.

What on earth has this got to do with a political left coast blog?

Two weeks ago, I tried to persuade my 7-year-old that elves are real (heck, he has no problem with the tooth fairy, though I don’t appreciate the winged one’s line of credit). My son remained skeptical but then we received a printed note from the Rosa Parks (the name of his school) Bike Elves.

It seems that these elves are very committed to encouraging young people to bike to school (and elsewhere). They (magically?) appear at the school and decorate the bikes at the bike rack with colorful ribbons. Now they are offering other incentives to young cyclists such as an ice cream social after school one night and to receive raffle tickets with cool prizes for riding to school.

I don’t know who these elves are, but one of them, Stephanie is willing to help children and parents map a safe route to school (I wonder if elves rely on google maps or prefer a GPS?).

In most fantasy novels, the elves have a great respect for the earth. In Berkeley, they are taking practical steps to help our youngsters embrace a healthy and socially responsible lifestyle.

Gotta love those elves!

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Alon Shalev is the author of The Accidental Activist (now available on Kindle) and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at www.alonshalev.com