Q&A With Judy Batalion 

New York Times Bestselling Author, Judy Batalion is my next guest for this Q&A for Book Notions. Judy is the author of the nonfiction book The Light of Days, her memoir White Walls & her debut historical fiction novel, The Last Woman of Warsaw is available today on April 7^th wherever you get your books! Judy Batalion has also written essays and articles for The New York Times, the Washington Post, Vogue, the Forward, Salon, the Jerusalem Post and many other publications.

Q: Judy, would you like to give a brief description of each of your books starting off with The Last Woman of Warsaw? 

A: The Last Woman of Warsaw is the tale of unlikely and powerful friendship between two very different young Jewish women – a fashion photographer and a political activist – and it’s set in dazzling, sophisticated and fashionable Warsaw in 1938. We don’t really think of pre-war Warsaw as being a cultural hub, but it was the locus of theater, vaudeville, comedy, fashion – there were 130 Jewish newspapers published there at the time. I wanted to explore women’s lives in this exciting world that was also on the brink of war. 

The Light of Days is the true story of young Jewish women and teenage girls who resisted the Nazis from the ghettos in Poland. They ran underground schools, secret libraries and soup kitchens, and they sabotaged Nazi trains, worked as weapons couriers, and flung Molotov cocktails during ghetto uprisings.

White Walls: A Memoir About Motherhood, Daughterhood and the Mess in Between, follows my relationship with my mother, who suffered from compulsive hoarding disorder, and shares how I not only came to terms with it but learned from it, as I became a mother myself.

Q: How long did it take you to research The Light of Days & The Last Woman of Warsaw? What was the transition like going from writing nonfiction to then writing historical fiction and what is your advice for anyone wanting to write both? 

A: I began working on The Light of Days in 2007 when I happened to come across an extraordinary Yiddish book from 1946 about Jewish women who resisted the Nazis. I’m still researching and writing about this subject! So – egads – it’s been nearly 20 years. In non-fiction, the challenge was to make a cohesive history out of 100s of documents, and then to fact-check and footnote every single detail. With fiction, the challenge was to come up with a suspenseful story while also considering the ethics: what elements of history can be altered?

My advice about writing any of kind of history is to actually write. It is easy, and tempting to get stuck in research. But research never ends. There is always another archive, another book, another person to interview. At some point, you need to stop, say “I’ll read that later if I can,” and just start to pull together your thoughts.

Q: While you were writing your memoir White Walls, did it feel therapeutic writing your story down and were there memories that were tough to write down? 

A: I always write to make sense of something. I needed to make sense of my complicated relationship with my mother as a I became a mother myself. I can’t say I figured it all out, but I figured out a few things, so, yes. Understanding myself feels liberating and is cathartic. 

Q: What are lessons you hope readers learn and remember after they finish reading your books? 

A: I don’t initiate books to teach lessons – I’m usually fueled by a desire to explore an area that just isn’t talked about (and should be!). But over the years of writing and then speaking to readers, I suppose certain things have become important to me. In The Last Woman of Warsaw, I want readers to understand that our world is very similar to the world of Warsaw in the 1930s; what happened to their sophisticated and vibrant culture can so easily happen to ours. In The Light of Days I want readers to know that Jewish women were not passive during the Nazi’s genocidal assault, but were active resistors who risked their lives time and time again to fight for justice, liberty and dignity. 

Q: Will your next book be another historical fiction, historical nonfiction or a memoir? Or are you juggling multiple projects? 

A: My next book is actually a totally different beast – it’s a health book! I’m co-writing it with NBC’s Chloe Melas – we both have ulcerative colitis. This book addresses the day-to-day realities of living with various bowel diseases. And it’s funny. (I hope.)

But I also have several novel ideas on the go… we’ll see what sticks. More soon! 

Q: What’s it like writing essays & articles The New York Times, the Washington Post, Vogue, the Forward, Salon, the Jerusalem Post and many other publications? What’s your advice for anyone wanting to submit their work to these publications? 

A: I can’t stress enough how important it is to read the publications and the particular columns or sections to which you’d like to submit your work. Do they run personal essays, and/or opinion pieces and/or research-based pieces? Do they run first-person writing? How long are their pieces? If you want to sell work to an existing publication you need to understand and write to their framework. 

Q: Would you please give links to your social media accounts so the readers of the blog and I can follow you? 

A: I’m @judybatlion on IG and JudyBatalionAuthor on FB. Please follow me!