Gordon Haber
Writer, Editor, Mediocre Guitarist

Education

2002: MFA in Creative Writing, Fiction, from Columbia University if you must know, which I am still paying off.

1990: BA in English and Fine Arts (double major!) from a state school (Albany). My friends and I had fun.

Writing Stuff

Religion Writer for outlets like Religion Dispatches, Religion & Politics, Forward, Tablet, and Killing the Buddha. This is really interesting work: lately I’ve been looking at the intersection of conservatism, religion, and politics (clips here, here, and here; more clips here).

Fiction Writer of UGGS for Gaza, a collection of short stories and novellas about young (and not-so-young) people in varying stages of distress, which is a very funny and moving book that you should buy immediately. Currently working on stories about the Korean War. I also wrote a novel that a publisher tried to destroy, and if you buy me a drink I’ll tell you the whole painful story.

Business Writer of native content for the nice people at City Point and Rockefeller Center and German tourism. Also editing for an IT company, and a white paper on credit risk for a financial info company, among (many) other clients.

Teaching Stuff

Instructor at the School of the New York Times. Now, this is a fantastic gig because (a) all the students want to be there and (b) I get to teach creative writing and (c) I get to do a lot of fun stuff with the students like go to restaurants! And museums! And Central Park! 2016-present.

Adjunct College Instructor at various institutions of higher education in New York City and Los Angeles, which paid starvation wages but were often quite rewarding due to the students, which is a cliché but true, and there’s not a snowball’s chance I’m doing this ever again, unless you pay me three times as much. 2000 to 2014.

Publishing Stuff

Publisher and Editor at Dutch Kills Press, a micropress I started in 2013 to help get interesting work out into the world, such as:

• Dan Bern’s second novel, 10,000 Crappy Songs, (the e-book includes 22 non-crappy songs!)
• Amber Benson’s (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) hilarious story Death and Buses
• Jason Antoon’s (Claws) brilliant collection The Cursed Frog and Other Fairy Tales for Grown-Ups

Skills

• E-Books. Making e-books, selling e-books, consulting about e-books, thinking that it might lead to a nice day job, but so far it’s only led to some extra income, not that I’m complaining.
• Writing and editing. Like every other schmuck in New York.
• Languages: Bad French, execrable Polish.

Awards

• Fulbright Fellowship to Poland, 2002. One glorious year of traveling, note-taking and writing, which resulted in a travelogue that was rejected by 30 of American’s finest publishers.
• MacDowell Colony Residency, 2007. Two glorious months in New Hampshire that I hoped would herald a new phase of my career, which it did not, although I did meet my wife and now we have a son, so it wasn’t like great things didn’t come out of it, plus I totally hung out with Michael Chabon.
• Queens Arts Council Award, 2008, 2018. They give you money! For writing!

Professional Organizations

• International Association of Religion Journalists
• Religion News Association

Current Medication

• One aspirin per day to prevent heart disease
• Red wine
• Xanax (when flying)

Fears

• Global warming
• Irrelevance
• Clowns

Buy me!

1. You can buy his book!
2. He teaches at the School of the New York Times!
3. He runs the micropress Dutch Kills Press!
4. He writes about religion for various online magazines!
5. He tweets here, and occasionally his jokes are funny!

Yusuf (Joseph) reunited with his father Ya’qub (Jacob)

I checked analytics for the first time in months, and to my surprise there’s been a spike in visitors. Welcome! About me:

• I write about religion and culture for various magazines. Here’s my latest piece for the Forward on a fascinating exhibition on the strong connections between Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
• I am the author of the story collection Uggs for Gaza.
• This summer I will be teaching creative writing, among other things, at the School of the New York Times.
• I run the micropublishing company Dutch Kills Press.
• I am not the wolf expert Gordon Haber who died in a plane crash in Alaska.

I’m the handsome one in the foreground.

Journalism

For the Jewish Chronicle, a UK newspaper, I wrote about:

• Richard Meier’s open-robe trick,
• the “globalist” term,
• and the Illinois Congressional candidate who is also a Holocaust denier.

Fictioning 

• I was lucky enough to read and be interviewed on The Other Stories, Ilana Masad’s killer podcast,
• I was awarded my second(!) Queens Arts Fund grant to work on my novel-in-progress,
• and my story collection, Uggs for Gaza, is as ever available on Amazon.

I’ve been quite busy in 2018 — working on some new fiction about the Korean War and digging up new material for Dutch Kills Press. Below I’ve collected links my most recent nonfiction on religion in my beautiful crazypants country.

• Here is my piece dissecting evangelical support for Donald Trump. (Spoiler alert: it’s easier to understand if you accept that it’s devoid of logic.)
• This is my response to the legal scholar who took issue with my piece about the Museum of the Bible. It’s fascinating that so many of the responses to my MOTB piece take issue with arguments that I never made.
• This is my review of Waco, the Paramount miniseries on the violent demise of David Koresh.

The nice people at Commaful have selected this very website as one of the Top Author Websites of 2017! A lovely unexpected surprise.

1. For Religion & Politics, I interviewed the authors of Bible Nation, a new book about the Green family and their Hobby Lobby shenanigans.
2. Then for the Forward, I went to D.C. and checked out the Greens’ new Museum of the Bible. (Spoiler alert: they got a lot wrong.)
3. My story collection UGGS FOR GAZA is for sale here. People tell me it makes a great holiday gift.

Come to a Reading!

Every time you buy one an angel gets his wings

November 7 at 8pm: Belated Book Party at Quimby’s NYC
Wine, cheese and prose at a beautiful independent bookstore.
536 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn, New York 11211

November 15th at 7.30pm: Guerrilla Lit Reading Series at Dixon Place
With Mylène Dressler and Victoria Redel.
161A Chrystie Street, New York, NY 10002

Hear Smart People Talking About Books!

Also I highly recommend you check out The Seventh-Day: Israeli Literature Fifty Years After the Six-Day War. The 14th St Y, in collaboration with the Jewish Book Council, has set up a fascinating series that discusses the volatile nature of Israeli society and its literature fifty years after its shortest of many wars. The mastermind behind the series of the brilliant editor Hanan Elstein.  For free tickets register here.

But hey it’s not about the money

Here’s what I am up to this fall:

Reading!

• September 29th at the Platform Art Fair in Brooklyn.
• November 15th, Guerrilla Lit at Dixon Place.

Writing!

• Uncle Oatmeal, a short story, was published in Killing the Buddha.
• I wrote about trying (and failing) to get Portuguese citizenship for Kveller.

Shilling my book!

• UGGS FOR GAZA (AND OTHER STORIES), is available for purchase online here.
• and in Brooklyn at Word and Quimby’s.
• and in Queens at the 51st Bakery & Cafe and Matted LIC.
• and in Manhattan at Book Culture.

Kids today are so entitled, amirite? [Photo: ©2017 Basil Rodericks]

___

As usual, I am aware that in these difficult times, so many of you lie awake, staring at the ceiling and asking yourself, “What is Gordon Haber up to?” Rest easy, because here’s your answer:

Writing!

• I wrote about The Handmaid’s Tale for Religion & Politics.
• I wrote about My Scientology Movie for Religion Dispatches.
• I wrote about The Grateful Dead for Killing the Buddha.
• I wrote about trying to get Portuguese citizenship for Kveller.

Reading!

• In March, I read from unpublished work at the 14th Street Y’s LABA Live.
• On April 12th, I read at Alewife in LIC with the Oh Bernice! reading series.

Teaching!

• Here’s a video of me discussing what I will doing for the New York Times Summer Academy.
• I spoke about Citizenship and the Jewish Question at the 14th Street Y.

Promoting!

• The JTA urged readers to check out my story collection, Uggs for Gaza.
• I was interviewed about the book over at Religion Dispatches.

Weirdness!

• In FORUM: Issues About Part-Time and Contingent Faculty a PhD student wrote an academic critique of this very blog.