We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Elan Barnehama. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Elan below.
Elan, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s talk legacy – what sort of legacy do you hope to build?
I hope I can inspire others that it’s never too late to make a change.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am a writer and teacher. My second novel, Escape Route, is set in New York City during the tumultuous late 1960s, and told by teenager, Zach, a first-generation son of Holocaust survivors, and NY Mets fan, who becomes obsessed with the Vietnam War and with finding an escape route for his family for when he believes the US will round up and incarcerate its Jews. Zach meets Samm, a seventh-generation Manhattanite whose brother has returned from Vietnam with PTSD which results in his suicide. Together, Samm and Zach explore protest, friendship, music, faith, and love during a time littered with hope and upheaval around the globe.
My writing has appeared in ParisLitUp, 10x10FlashFiction, BoogCity, JewishFiction, DrunkMonkeys, Entropy, RoughCutPress, BostonAccent, JewishWritingProject, RedFez, HuffPost, public radio, and elsewhere. My flash story, RED BOX, was nominated for BEST OF THE NET 2024. At different times, I have worked with at-risk youth, was the flash fiction editor for Forth Magazine LA, had a gig as a radio news guy, and did a mediocre job as a short-order cook. I am a New Yorker by default, A Mets fan by geography. Funny is always right. Rock ’N Roll always makes sense.
I am at work on a new novel that follows Ben, who runs the 2013 Boston Marathon and finishes a half hour before the bombs go off. In the days that follow, he decides to upend his life by leaving New York City, where he has lived his whole life, for Santa Monica.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
Risk-taking is at the center of my best changes. Not taking risks is at the core of my regrets.
We enter the world in the middle of events—not all of them good. We can choose to embrace our lives or whine loudly about our circumstances. Or we can muster the courage to imagine a different life, a life that has yet to exist.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
We are all storytellers by nature and necessity. Stories are how we enter and how we make sense of the world around us. When we spend time with the written word, we are connected to one another. And we are never alone.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://elanbarnehama.com/index.html
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elan32/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elan.barnehama/
- Twitter: https://x.com/ElanBarnehama
- Other: BLUESKY https://bsky.app/profile/elanb.bsky.social
Image Credits
Rhonda Fishman