Jennifer Lang 
Landed
October 25, 2024
11 AM PDT | 12 PM MDT | 1 PM CDT | 2 PM EDT

By the time I finished my MFA, I had written a 95,000 plus manuscript about my bicultural, interdenominational marriage whose narrative arc was MIA. The timeframe it covered was excessive, its word count unnecessary. Its only redeeming feature was that after decades of writing and publishing longform essays and flash nonfiction pieces about home and belonging, language and longing, I’d finally found my way in except that it didn’t work. I put it aside, let time pass, and eventually started anew. What resulted from pressing restart was not one but two books that read like Part I and Part II but can also each stand alone. My first book, Places We Left Behind, begins in 1989 and ends in 2011, when Landed: A yogi’s memoir in pieces & poses begins and stretches for seven years.

Synopsis
In experimental chapterettes, American-born Jennifer Lang traces her nonlinear journey—on and off a yoga mat—reckoning with her adopted country (Israel), midlife hormones (menopause), and imminent empty nest (inevitable). After two-plus decades of moving cities, countries, and continents with her French husband and their three children, she doesn’t know how to plant roots. Thanks to yoga teachings, emotional fortitude, and a spouse who supports her yen to reclaim her secular self in their religiously mixed marriage, she finally learns that home is more about who you are, than where you live.

What I hope readers take away from the book:

• That persistence (almost) always pays off
• That unconventional prose might open a new path into your story
• That compressed prose might reveal the heart of the story
• That you should never judge a book by its cover
• That the only way to get what you want is to try and keep trying and try again
• That DIY book tours require a lot of patience, strong organization and thick skin

Bio
Born in the San Francisco Bay Area, Jennifer Lang lives in Tel Aviv. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and served as an Assistant Editor for Brevity Journal for the past few years. Several of her essays have been nominated for prizes, including “Things Lost, Things Found,” “Fifty Days of Summer, 2014” “The Fabric of Peace,” “Seven Definitions of Secret,” and “Hand in hand,” a chapter from her first memoir. “Uprooted” won first place in Baltimore Review’s contest and “Repeat the Enchanting” in Midway Journal.

In 2015, Jennifer created Israel Writers Studio, where she teaches ongoing classes and workshops, as well as hosts guest instructors. When not at her desk, she’s often at the gym lifting 1-kilo weights or standing on her hands on her yoga mat. A longtime yoga instructor, she teaches YogaProse.

Her first book, Places We Left Behind: a memoir-in-miniature, won many awards: finalist in Foreword Reviews, Next Generation Indie, American Legacy, Independent Author Network, and the Wishing Shelf Book Awards. Landed: A yogi’s memoir in pieces & poses  will enter a whole new world this October.

Website: https://israelwriterstudio.com
Instagram: instagram.com/jenlangwrites
Facebook: facebook.com/jenlangwrites and facebook.com/israelwriterstudio