Gwen Strauss

There it is: an ugly red brick heap of a building standing alone on a flat open plain, a desolate wind-swept landscape, surrounded by train tracks and little else. In this building between 1939 and 1942, more than 10,000 people were imprisoned in terrible conditions. Most of the prisoners were not French nationals; they were refugees in France from totalitarian and fascist regimes. They came to seek refuge in the land of “les droits de l’homme” from Spain and Russia, and from pogroms in Eastern Europe. And then the Germans invaded. They were Jews, and Gypsies, and artists, and famous scientists. In 1942, 2000 people were deported directly from here to Auschwitz where they were murdered.  Read More 

I am no stranger to rejection. I’ve had high hopes and seen them dashed. This last novel, I wrote to make myself laugh. Being so serious and “literary” was really not working out for me. I figured I would not get myself too worked up about publishing it. I set a goal for myself. I would find twenty agents to submit to. I would work my way down the list. If I got to the end of the list with no takers, then I would self-publish.  Read More 

I am in the final (I think) phases of writing my novel, My Stray Guru. I am not sure how long I have been working on it. But I like to tell people that I am a writer and a failed novelist. This will be my fourth novel manuscript. Each one takes about 5- 10 years to write. I have come very close to getting one of them published. I have been hopeful and despondent. I have felt scared and brave. I have been angry and found laughter the best cure to existential despair.  Read More