Bintel Brief: Advice and Other Possible Pursuits — Ayelet Waldman Answers Your Questions

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
We are delighted to announce that writer Ayelet Waldman will be the Forward’s next guest Bintel Brief advice columnist — answering reader questions during the month of February.
Waldman inspired passionate debate (and an episode of “Oprah”) when she declared, in a New York Times essay, that she loves her husband more than she loves her children. That piece, and the response to it, paved the way for her forthcoming non-fiction book, “Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace.”
She is the author of the novels “Daughter’s Keeper” and “Love and Other Impossible Pursuits” — the latter of which is being made into a movie starring Natalie Portman. Waldman also penned seven installments of the “Mommy-Track Mystery” series, about a stay-at-home mother who moonlights as a crime-solving detective.
Waldman’s personal essays have appeared in the Guardian, Vogue, Elle, and New York, among other publications. A mother of four, she is married to Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon and lives in Northern California.
If you’re facing a parenting challenge, struggling to balance work and family, desperate to overcome writer’s block, or if you just could use a little advice from Ayelet Waldman, please send your questions for the Bintel Brief to [email protected]. Questions selected for publication will be printed anonymously.
Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
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