Maggie Anton
Author Interview - Maggie Anton
Author of The Midwives' Escape: from Egypt to Jericho
After years of archaeological research and biblical studies, award-winning author Maggie Anton has created a historical novel filled with adventure, warfare, and romance, that is true to both Torah and to history.
The Bible contains many extraordinary stories of a sometimes benevolent, sometimes vengeful deity, who guides the Israelites out of slavery, across the Sea of Reeds and through the wilderness to the Promised Land.
Maggie Anton's THE MIDWIVES ESCAPE: From Egypt to Jericho brings to life this exceptional Biblical journey through vivid descriptions of what daily life was like at this time, epic battlefield scenes and a colorful cast of characters.
An Egyptian mother and daughter, Asenet and Shifra, a midwife and her apprentice, wake up on the morning of the tenth plague to find Asenet's husband and son, both firstborns, dead. Asenet's sister Pua, married to an Israelite, urges Asenet's family to leave Egypt with them, which they reluctantly do, along with Asenet's wainwright father and his two apprentices. Recognizing that the Hebrew god is more powerful than any of the Egyptians' gods, other non-Israelites join the exodus, including Hittite and Nubian palace guards. Once hearing and accepting God's commandments at Mt. Sinai, these two Egyptian midwives join the Israelites on their forty-year journey to The Promised Land where they tend to the wounded, share hardship and adversity, fall in love, and start a new home and a new generation.
With THE MIDWIVES' ESCAPE, Anton has written an original and stunning recreation of the trials and tribulations on the road to the Promised Land.
Author Interview - Maggie Anton
Author I draw inspiration from:
Naomi Ragen: I loved her "The Ghost of Hannah Mendes"
Author Interview - Maggie Anton | Author I Draw Inspiration From
Favorite place to read a book:
On the patio, riding my exercycle
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with:
Dame Philippa from "In This House of Brede" by Rumer Godden. We could discuss religion in Japan; she grew up there and I just came home from traveling in Japan.
Author Interview - Maggie Anton | Book Character I’d Like to be Stuck in an Elevator With
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author:
I was rereading "All of a Kind Family" and wondered what it would be like to read the same kind of novel about Rashi's family. But I knew that if I wanted to read such a book, I would have to write it myself.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook:
Hardback: like the larger print, dislike the weight.
Paperback: like how convenient it is to bring it with me, dislike flimsiness.
Audiobook: like that I can listen in the car or while walking, dislike that it's difficult to find a specific part.
Ebook: like that it's easy to find a certain page or part to reread, dislike that it's inconvenient to get at library,
The last book I read:
I read "The Anomaly" by Hervé Le Tellier six weeks ago. Although it is well written; it is also weird, very weird. People I know who've read this book either like it or hate it. I reread it several times, and reread certain scenes at least a dozen times. I've heard many complaints about the ending, but I think I understood it.
Author Interview - Maggie Anton | The Last Book I Read
Pen & paper or computer:
Computer : best/only way to edit and save my work.
Book character I think I’d be best friends with:
The Golem from • "The Golem and the Jinni" by Helene Wecker. The Golem was an intelligent female, curious about so much in the world she didn't understand.
Author Interview - Maggie Anton | Book Character I’d be Best Friends With
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a:
A clinical chemist, like I was before I retired to write Jewish historical novels
Favorite decade in fashion history:
Ancient times, so ancient that there was no such thing as fashion. Everyone wore animal skins and furs.
Place I’d most like to travel:
Back to Japan; we only spent two weeks there and there is so much more I want to see
My signature drink:
Nonalcoholic jasmine tea
Favorite artist:
My husband, Dave Parkhurst, does wonderful b&w drawings. He illustrated my upcoming novel, "The Midwives' Escape: from Egypt to Jericho"
Number one on my bucket list:
Traveling to Norway to see the Northern Lights
Anything else you'd like to add:
Doing research for my historical novels is the fun part; writing the actual books is hard work.
Find more from the author:
About Maggie Anton:
Author Interview - Maggie Anton
Maggie Anton is an award-winning author of historical fiction, as well as a Talmud scholar with expertise in Jewish women's history. She was born Margaret Antonofsky in Los Angeles, California, where she still resides. In 1992 she joined a women's Talmud class taught by Rachel Adler. There, to her surprise, she fell in love with Talmud, a passion that has continued unabated for thirty years. Intrigued that the great Jewish scholar Rashi had no sons, only daughters, she started researching the family and their community.
Thus the award-winning trilogy, "Rashi's Daughters," was born, to be followed by National Jewish Book Award finalist, "Rav Hisda's Daughter: Apprentice" and its sequel, "Enchantress." Then she switched to nonfiction, winning the Gold Ben Franklin Award in the religion category for "Fifty Shades of Talmud: What the First Rabbis Had to Say about You-Know What," a lighthearted in-depth tour of sexuality within the Talmud. Her latest work is "The Choice: A Novel of Love, Faith and the Talmud," a fair-use transformative derivative of Chaim Potok’s early novels.
Since 2005, Anton has lectured about the research behind her books at hundreds of venues throughout North America, Europe and Israel. She still studies women and Talmud, albeit mostly online. Her favorite Talmud learning sites are Daf Shevui and Mishna Yomit, provided daily via email by the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem
