David Regenspan
David Regenspan spent most of his adult life in Upstate New York, USA, and its landscape informs his stories. He is a retired rabbi with a now secular outlook, but Jewish people and themes tend to pop up in his fiction. He enjoys playing piano and serious music listening, being married to a brilliant scholar and poet, and being a father to two fine adults and well as a new grandfather.
David started writing poetry and stories at an early age, but did not become serious about it until he was in his thirties and forties. He learned a good deal about writing craft from the Bread Loaf and Colgate writers’ conferences. He has self-published a novel, has written an as yet unpublished novel, and has published short stories in Amarillo Bay, JewishFiction.net, The Jewish Literary Journal and Potato Soup Journal.
David Regenspan’s short story can be read here.
Q: If you could travel back in time, which of the great writers would you like to meet and why?
A: The Bronte sisters and George Eliot to experience their fascinating minds. Also Herman Melville, if only to tell him that Moby Dick would eventually become a great success.
Q: Do you have a favourite quote? (From a book, film, song, speech…)
A: From the Jewish sage Hillel from ‘Sayings of the Fathers’: ‘If am not for me who will be for me? But being for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?’
Q: Is there a book that you keep going back to, and if so, how many times have you read it?
A: The Torah (Five Books of Moses) because I follow its cycle of readings each year. I have no idea how many times I have read it.
Q: What superpower would you like to have and why?
A: The ability to be absolutely calm.
