by Bar­bara Bietz

When I heard my friend Sylvia Rouss had pub­lished a col­lec­tion of short sto­ries, A World of Bless­ings, I want­ed to learn more about her book as well as her pub­lish­ing endeav­or, Apples & Hon­ey Press. Sylvia was kind enough to share thoughts about her cre­ative jour­ney with me.

Bar­bara Bietz: Tell me about your new col­lec­tion of sto­ries. What inspired you to cre­ate a collection? 

Sylvia Rouss: As a writer, I write sto­ries because it is a cre­ative out­let for me, not because I nec­es­sar­i­ly seek to have a sto­ry pub­lished. Often a human inter­est sto­ry in the news­pa­per will inspire me to put pen to paper” as a way to cap­ture and pre­serve the intrin­sic beau­ty of a re­ported event. In my book, the sto­ry of The Rab­bi and the Fire­fight­ers” was such a sto­ry. It demon­strat­ed the best qual­i­ties that we as humans have by com­ing to the aid of anoth­er with­out regard for our own safety. 

Some­times I am touched by a self­less act that I am priv­i­leged to wit­ness. Gifts of Love” was inspired by a friend’s young daugh­ter who decid­ed to donate her beau­ti­ful long tress­es to Locks of Love. Jog­nau, the Dream­er” is a sto­ry based on the real life res­cue of Ethiopi­an Jews. I met the Israeli Ambas­sador to Ethiopia who was instru­men­tal in ar­ranging the air­lift­ing of 15,000 Jews from a hos­tile coun­try in twen­ty-four hours. News accounts from the time indi­cat­ed that three chil­dren were born on the flights from Ethiopia to Israel. At the urg­ing of the ambas­sador, I wrote a sto­ry of one family’s strug­gle with the deci­sion to go because the moth­er is about to have her sixth child. Sev­er­al of my sto­ries were sold to pub­lish­ing hous­es and dur­ing the reces­sion they expe­ri­enced finan­cial dif­fi­cul­ties and the rights revert­ed to me. With so many set­backs in the children’s pub­lish­ing indus­try, my hus­band and I made the deci­sion to cre­ate our own pub­lish­ing house, asked friends to join us in the busi­ness ven­ture, and began by pub­lish­ing some of my favorite stories. 

BB: You tack­le some dif­fi­cult top­ics in your short sto­ries. What chal­lenges did you face when writ­ing about del­i­cate issues? 

SR: I lost my father at a young age and I can still remem­ber the par­ents of my friends or teach­ers at school who were uncom­fort­able acknowl­edging my loss. It was my friends, eight-year-olds like me, who had no dif­fi­cul­ty express­ing their feel­ings about some­thing that is part of life. As a teacher, I have dealt with fam­i­lies who are fac­ing dif­fi­cul­ties in their lives. Often when there is an ill­ness or loss in a fam­i­ly, a par­ent will ask me to rec­om­mend a book that will help them explain a dif­fi­cult sub­ject to a young child. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, books on these top­ics are hard to find. Writ­ers are afraid they are too dark” for young read­ers and pub­lish­ers shy away from them because there is a lim­it­ed mar­ket for such sto­ries. I decid­ed that these top­ics are impor­tant and I was deter­mined to meet the chal­lenge in the same way my young friends did with me when my father died — with sen­si­tiv­i­ty and honesty. 

BB: Can you share the jour­ney of Apples & Hon­ey Press? 

SR: My hus­band, Jeff, is my biggest fan and sup­port­er. He deals with the busi­ness side of my writ­ing. I like to cre­ate but nego­ti­at­ing with publish­ing hous­es is not some­thing I enjoy. When my hus­band sug­gest­ed that we begin our own pub­lish­ing house, I was skep­ti­cal. It was a finan­cial risk I wasn’t sure I want­ed to take. It took some con­vinc­ing on his part but I rec­og­nized that many small pub­lish­ing hous­es begin in a sim­i­lar way. We are begin­ning with my col­lec­tion of short sto­ries and we are in the process of pub­lish­ing a pic­ture book. This sto­ry, like some of my oth­ers, had been sold at dif­fer­ent times to four dif­fer­ent pub­lish­ing hous­es but the rights revert­ed to me. I love the sto­ry about a grand­moth­er shar­ing fam­i­ly mem­o­ries with her grand­child. If this endeav­or proves suc­cess­ful, we hope to accept man­u­scripts from oth­er writ­ers and become com­pet­i­tive in the children’s book market. 

BB: Sylvia – Wish­ing you all the best with A World of Blessings!

Bar­bara Bietz is a free­lance writer and children’s book review­er. She is cur­rent­ly a mem­ber of the Syd­ney Tay­lor Book Award Com­mit­tee. Bar­bara is the author of the mid­dle grade book, Like a Mac­cabee. She has a blog ded­i­cat­ed to Jew­ish books for chil­dren at www​.jew​ish​books​forkids​.com.

Bar­bara Bietz is a free­lance writer and children’s book review­er. She is cur­rent­ly a mem­ber of the Syd­ney Tay­lor Book Award Com­mit­tee. Bar­bara is the author of the mid­dle grade book, Like a Mac­cabee. She has a blog ded­i­cat­ed to Jew­ish books for chil­dren at www​.Bar​baraB​Book​Blog​.Blogspot​.com.