Hello Friends!
I hope you’re well. It’s been a busy few weeks, and I’m so happy to be able to write to you again.
It was a great surprise to see that my new memoir, When She Comes Back, has made the Book Riot List of Best True Crime books of 2021! It might seem strange that my book is on this list, but I can thank the late guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his sidekick Ma Anand Sheela for this distinction since they make up part of my story and my family’s history.
Quick facts about Rajneeshpuram, the ashram Bhagwan established on the Big Muddy Ranch in Antelope, OR:
His inner circle was responsible for the most significant bioterror attack on US soil.
His inner circle was trying to isolate and potentially weaponize the AIDS virus.
His sannyasins or followers sanctioned sexual relations between adults and minors on the ranch.
I cover a lot of this and more in When She Comes Back and how this infamous guru, later named Osho, profoundly affected my childhood.
Thank you so much, Book Riot!
An Opportunity To Dive Deeper and Reflect
Sometimes when you think you know your history so well, a gifted interviewer or friend comes along and asks you questions that make you dive deeper and reflect in new ways. I had a conversation with Margo Fowkes, who is indeed a gifted interviewer and now good friend, and our talk allowed me to think freshly about what I know about writing, family, and this memoir of mine.
You can find our two-part interview here: https://findyourharbor.com/when-she-comes-back/
One Of My Latest Guest Appearances
Whenever people used to hear my family’s story, they expressed surprise that I still had a relationship with my mother. They could understand, they’d sometimes say, how I might never want to speak with her again, they’d ask how I reconciled with her. I wrote a new piece about it which Kveller has just published. It’s not always easy to look at your own behavior and interrogate it; to be honest with oneself and see how imperfect we are. But this was an important piece of my healing puzzle.
You can read my new essay here: https://www.kveller.com/my-jewish-mom-left-us-to-join-a-cult-heres-how-we-reconciled/
In Review: And Then Everything Changed (Episode 83)
Last week on the podcast Margo Fowkes joined me for Episode 83- Find Your Harbor: Life in the Wake of Loss.
After her son Jimmy died of cancer rarely seen in children, Margo found that what helped her through her profound grief the most was other people leaving space in the world for him. She discovered support in loved ones talking about Jimmy and sharing their experience of losing him. She founded the Salt Water community to help people heal and live after their devastating loss–a child, a sibling, a spouse, a parent, a close friend– and to provide a safe harbor where those grieving can find comfort, support, and tools to survive their loss and rebuild their life. In this episode, Margo shares Jimmy’s story and talks about how she’s navigated grief that she has come to understand will forever come in waves.
Listen here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/and-then-everything-changed/id1485293813
My Latest Podcast Release Featuring Leah Carey
This week on the podcast Leah Carey, sex and intimacy coach and host of the podcast Good Girls Talk About Sex, joins me to share her story of healing sexual trauma and her mission to empower women into being equal co-creators of their sexual experience.
You can listen to this episode here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healing-sexual-wounds-featuring-leah-carey/id1485293813?i=1000524617123
Thanks For Reading!
Thank you so much for subscribing to my newsletter and for your support of my book. I’m grateful for your ratings and reviews on Goodreads and Amazon and appreciate every single one. If you haven’t left one yet, please take a few minutes to—these reviews and ratings help others decide if they’d like to read my book. And, if you enjoyed When She Comes Back, please tell your friends, tell your bookclubs, in fact, tell your bookclub I’d love to Zoom in for an author Q and A if they’d like. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Wishing you all the best.
XO
Ronit