Before a Speaking Engagement
Singing With a Klezmer Group
With My Wife, Toby, at a wedding
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What this Website is About Life is a journey with a start and a finish, and what you do in between is your story. People have asked me why I'm putting up a website, and I have given this some thought. Initially, it was to sell the three novels I've written featured below, but as I thought about it, I recalled my foray into to my family's genealogy and realized that for most people recalled, only names and dates were all that were left of them. No record was left to tell me who they really were, their dreams, their aspirations, what they valued, what they thought, or what they loved doing.
There are many truths I've learned as I've traveled on this journey, and one important one is that each of us simply wants to be known, to share what really matters, to be thought of as having some uniqueness, to have made some sort of mark or statement that will say, "I was here." So in addition to being a weak bid at immortality, this site is also an ongoing love letter to my nine grandchildren who live far away from me, my nephews and nieces, young cousins, and also to my former students who entered my classrooms and entered my heart. Many teachers never have the pleasure of seeing their students grow into adulthood, but many of mine have allowed me the privileged of staying part of their lives and rejoicing in their growth and accomplishments. For my grandchildren, when they are old enough to understand, this website will let them know who I am and what I stand for, and will also inform my descendants of who I was. For my students, it is an invitation to continue our relationship even if we do not see one another often. There is even a drop down entitled, "Grandpa Zeydah Wisdom" under the Biography heading which invites any young person who reads it a better understanding of how to negotiate a world that is sometimes not kind or sane. Since I do not know what waits for me beyond this life, I have created this website to share what my engagement with the world was and is as I move into my "sexygenarian" years. (I coined that word.) |
My three literary efforts thus far: Consider My Servant, A World of Secrets, and Old and Full of Days.
Critical acclaim for novels------
"I just want to let you know that I recently finished your first two books, and I was truly enthralled! Len, I expected them to be decently good, but was amazed at the literary quality. Not only could I not put them down, but I marveled at the insight to human relationships, the knowledge of a variety of topics relating to the plot, the suspense factor, the vocabulary, and much more. The characters were so well developed that they became good friends and I hated to leave them at the end. I hope you’re in the middle of a sequel. I’m no literary critic, but I think you have an exceptional talent for writing. Thanks for sending the books. They will certainly take their place among the most memorable books I’ve read.”
E. Maxwell, Saint George, UT To find out more about my novels and how to order them, click here. |