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A provocative collection of interconnected tales, bridging the worlds of mysticism and heresy, faith and desire—from the award-winning author of Everything is God and The Heresy of Jacob Frank.The Secret That Is Not a Secret: Ten Heretical Tales invites you into a hidden world of faith, desire, transgression, and revelation. The inhabitants of its interlocking stories are pious and rebellious, mystical and queer, from a Hasidic woman tormented by her husband’s long beard to a closeted gay man repenting of his sins in the mikva. The first book of fiction by Rabbi Dr. Jay Michaelson, winner of the National Jewish Book Award,
The Secret That Is Not a Secret is a remarkable work of mystical fiction.
About the author
Rabbi Dr. Jay Michaelson is the author of nine books, including
Everything is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism and
The Heresy of Jacob Frank: From Jewish Messianism to Esoteric Myth, winner of the 2023 National Jewish Book Award for Scholarship. He holds an MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence, a PhD in Jewish Thought from Hebrew University, and a JD from Yale. Jay is a journalist at
Rolling Stone and CNN, a rabbi, a longtime LGBTQ activist, and a teacher of Jewish, Buddhist meditation. He lives outside New York City with his husband and daughter.
Summary
A provocative collection of interconnected tales, bridging the worlds of mysticism and heresy, faith and desire—from the award-winning author of Everything is God and The Heresy of Jacob Frank.
The Secret That Is Not a Secret: Ten Heretical Tales invites you into a hidden world of faith, desire, transgression, and revelation. The inhabitants of its interlocking stories are pious and rebellious, mystical and queer, from a Hasidic woman tormented by her husband’s long beard to a closeted gay man repenting of his sins in the mikva. The first book of fiction by Rabbi Dr. Jay Michaelson, winner of the National Jewish Book Award, The Secret That Is Not a Secret is a remarkable work of mystical fiction.
Foreword
Marketing Plan:
- Launch events and special sales campaign leading up to Chanukah, which comes just after the book's publication day.
- Book club pitches to various spiritual and activist community organizations.
- Pre-publication submission to industry reviewers (Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus, Shelf Awareness, Library Journal, Booklist, etc.).
- Outreach to independent booksellers, libraries, and academics.
- Ambitious social media campaign, partnering with progressive Jewish organizations in author’s network to boost reach.
- Targeted social media advertising.
Publicity Plan: - Author is often invited to speak at community organizations and will ambitiously pursue speaking engagements in the months leading up to/following publication.
- Press campaign to place excerpts, reviews and/or interviews with the author in print publications like the New York Times, The Forward, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and the New York Review of Books.
- Campaign to place interviews with the author on CNN (where he’s a commentator), NPR and MSNBC (where he’s appeared before), and on spiritual and LGBTQ+ oriented podcasts.
