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Essential Questions with Rabbi Dan LevinAuthor: Temple Beth El of Boca Raton
Each episode of Essential Questions with Rabbi Dan Levin will pose an essential question and invite a conversation with remarkable people in the Jewish world and in our community to consider what those questions and answers mean. Language: en Genres: Judaism, Religion & Spirituality Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it Trailer: |
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What Does it Take to Write a Novel? with Andrew Furman
Episode 38
Wednesday, 17 December, 2025
What inspires someone to write a novel, and how do those stories take shape before the writer even knows where they’re going? Rabbi Dan Levin is joined by novelist and FAU professor Andrew Furman for a thoughtful conversation about creativity, uncertainty, and finding a voice. Furman reflects on being drawn to Jewish literature as a reader while taking a different path as a writer, often working on the margins of what was being published and expected. Together, they explore enduring questions about writing: how much comes from personal experience, whether a writer needs an extraordinary life to tell meaningful stories, and what it means to write with genuine curiosity. Furman shares how passion for the subject and attention to the inner lives of characters can draw readers into experiences that feel deeply familiar, even when they are not their own. The episode also looks at the writing process itself: planning versus discovery, resisting self-censorship, and allowing larger themes to emerge over time. Along the way, Rabbi Dan connects fiction to the layered way we read Jewish texts, and to the power of stories to create empathy across distance and difference. At its heart, this conversation asks why novels matter, and what they awaken in us when we read and write them.
