Bylines and Blessings: Overcoming Obstacles, Striving for Excellence, and Redefining Success
What happens when career ambition begins to clash with cherished religious values? In this illuminating memoir, award-winning author Judy Gruen shares how she resolved these seemingly conflicting drives.
From an overconfident young journalist earning her chops with a small publisher, a major university, and a Fortune 500 corporation, she learns to rise above rejection and rookie errors in pursuit of professional excellence and growth.
Later, as she navigates writing and motherhood, Gruen’s values increasingly steer her course. Understanding that words create worlds, she chooses to write about life through the lens of Jewish teachings-in pointed response to a society growing more hostile to traditional religion. After a crisis of professional confidence, she turns to a trusted mentor who helps her find the blessings in the bylines.
This engaging memoir is filled with humor and depth. Reading it will feel like having a heart-to-heart talk with an old friend.
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Judy Gruen is the author of The Skeptic and the Rabbi: Falling in Love with Faith and several other books. Her essays and book reviews appear regularly in the Jewish Journal, and her work has also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Aish.com, Jewish Action, Boston Globe, and the New York Daily News. Judy has also edited several books on Judaism. She earned her master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Jeff.