Debbie Harpham
from author’s website
Judith Teitelman has straddled the worlds of art, literature, and business since she was a teenager and worked her first job as a salesperson at a B. Dalton / Pickwick Bookstore. Just three months after graduating from UCLA with a degree in Art History, she was hired by Ace Gallery to open and manage Art and Architecture Books of the Twentieth Century, at the time Los Angeles’ second bookstore devoted exclusively to the arts. She began her career in the nonprofit sector in 1983, and in 1990 launched her arts and business management consulting firm working nationally with grass roots and mid-sized organizations and large institutions. She is also a mentor, trainer, and professional advisor to artists working in all disciplines.
Judith is on the Theater School faculty at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) co-teaching Entrepreneurship. She is a regular trainer at the Long Beach Nonprofit Partnership and the Center for Cultural Innovation (CCI), among others, and was a trainer for more than 20 years at Los Angeles’ Center for Nonprofit Management.
Always, Judith continued her pursuit of all things literary and over the years, her articles have been published in a variety of formats and publications. These include two articles on the National Endowment for the Arts website, one that remained on the site for a dozen years, and six recent articles in Professional Artist magazine.
In 2008 Judith was a finalist for a PEN Emerging Voices Fellowship. Guesthouse for Ganesha, a tale of love, loss, and spirit reclaimed, is her debut novel. In 2016 this novel’s first chapter was published in the highly regarded literary journal PoemMemoirStory.
View Judith’s two minute introduction to Guesthouse for Ganesha here.
ABOUT GUESTHOUSE FOR GANESHA:
In 1923, seventeen-year-old Esther Grünspan arrives in Köln “with a hardened heart as her sole luggage.” Thus begins a twenty-two-year journey, woven against the backdrops of the European Holocaust and the Hindu Kali Yuga (the “Age of Darkness” when human civilization degenerates spiritually), in search of a place of sanctuary. Throughout her travails, using cunning and shrewdness, Esther relies on her masterful tailoring skills to help mask her Jewish heritage, navigate war-torn Europe, and emigrate to India.
Esther’s traveling companion and the novel’s narrator is Ganesha, the elephant-headed Hindu God worshipped by millions for his abilities to destroy obstacles, bestow wishes, and avenge evils. Impressed by Esther’s fortitude and relentless determination, born of her deep―though unconscious―understanding of the meaning and purpose of love, Ganesha, with compassion, insight, and poetry, chooses to highlight her story because he recognizes it is all of our stories―for truth resides at the essence of its telling.
Weaving Eastern beliefs and perspectives with Western realities and pragmatism, Guesthouse for Ganesha is a tale of love, loss, and spirit reclaimed.
PRAISE AND RECOGNITION FOR GUESTHOUSE FOR GANESHA:
2020 IPPY Awards Gold Winner in Regional Fiction―Europe
2020 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards Silver Winner in Audiobook: Fiction
Award-Winning Finalist in the Best Cover Design: Fiction category of the 2020 International Book Awards
2019 Sarton Women’s Book Awards Finalist in Historical Fiction
“Teitelman paints an intensely beautiful world in which different cultures merge in surprising ways. . . . A rich and moving story about an unlikely pair.”―Kirkus Reviews
“Readers who are drawn to stories about maintaining faith in challenging times, particularly those with religious views rooted in a pluralist approach to theism rather than any single system’s tenets, will find Esther’s epiphany moving. The relationship between the two strands of narrative, one human and one deity, invites readers to consider the relationship between the secular and sacred in their everyday lives. And the interstices in Teitelman’s narrative, where specific religious systems connect and collide, suggest a comforting movement toward harmony. Most importantly, Esther survives; hers is a hopeful tale.”―Los Angeles Review of Books
“Spiritual, socially astute, politically chilling, and psychologically gripping, Guesthouse for Ganesha is the kind of novel marketers hate and readers love because it challenges simple categorization. . . . Neither a Holocaust story nor Hindu legend, Guesthouse for Ganesha blends elements of both with an exceptional attention to vivid detail and transformation that results in a thoroughly unexpected, delightful dance through life.”―Midwest Book Review
AUTHOR VISITS:
Author visits with Judith Teitelman are available via staging.novelsandbox.com/our-authors/.