Sonia Pressman Fuentes

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Excerpts from Eat First -- You Don't Know What They'll Give You

Jewish Geography -- this story was first published in October 1998 in Der Bay, the newsletter of the International Association of Yiddish Clubs. Here, both the English version and a version in transliterated Yiddish are available in pdf format.
Return to Germany -- the story of Sonia’s return to Germany in 1978 to speak about the women’s rights revolution in the US for the then-US Information Agency (USIA), published on the website of The Jewish Writing Project on Jan. 19, 2009. That story is also contained in the anthology, Marking Humanity, Stories Poems, & Essays by Holocaust Survivors, edited by Shlomit Kriger (Aug. 23, 2010, pp. 226-234).
If You Speak His Language --This piece was published in Tzum Punkt (Nov.-Dec. 1999, Vol. 1, No. 2) p. 5, the newsletter of Yiddish of Greater Washington.
Thai Silk -- This piece was first published in the Common Law Lawyer and then on the websites of whispersmagazine.com, iagora.com, and BankgokAtoZ.com (September 2001).
Florida and Beyond -- This excerpt appeared on May 25, 2001, in the Story Lady e-newsletter and on its website, the Jewish Frontier, the Jewish Internet magazine, the Jewish Magazine online, the e-zine, Home-Based Working Moms, and the Writer Online. Terry Boothman, the editor of the Writer Online, had this to say about it in the January 14, 2003, issue that carried the story:

Everyone's life is interesting, right? Sure. So, everyone should write a memoir, right? Yeah, why not.. And everyone should publish a memoir, right? Good Lord, no. Because not everyone knows how to write a publishable memoir, which means a memoir that lots of other people will enjoy reading. Sonia Pressman Fuentes, one of the founders of the National Organization for Women, published just such a memoir--"Eat First--You Don't Know What They'll Give You, The Adventures of an Immigrant Family and Their Feminist Daughter." Now, in How I Got My Mink Stole, excerpted from that memoir, you can get a glimpse of exactly how good memoirs are written.
Weinberg's Glasses - the story of what happened when Sonia's father found a pair of eyeglasses.
Sex Maniac -- the story of the Second Wave of the women's movement and Fuentes' role in it.
Harry Golden and "the Coat" -- Sonia Fuentes sues Harry Golden, published in Jewish Currents, June 16, 1997.
How I Got My Mink Stole -- a lengthy struggle with an unexpected denouement.
Eating Out -- published in the April 11, 2001, issue of Writer's Bloc Online, the e-newsletter of the National Writers Union.
Graduating With My Class -- Fuentes' desire to graduate with her high school class has a significant consequence. Published originally in the Catskill/Hudson Jewish Star 6.2 (June 1996) 17.1 and then on Harry Leichter's website.
Mother and the Night School -- published in the December 2001, issue of Kolot, A World of Jewish Voices.
Catskills Stories -- Some of Fuentes' stories about her experiences in the Catskill Mountains of New York State may be found at the Museum of Family History.

Buy the Book

Eat First -- You Don't Know What They'll Give You, The Adventures of an Immigrant Family and Their Feminist Daughter by Sonia Pressman Fuentes

Book Ordering Information

In the United States, EAT FIRST can be ordered in paperback and hardback from amazon.com, bn.com, and xlibris.com. The book can be ordered from amazon.co.uk in the UK and amazon.ca in Canada. EAT FIRST is also available for Kindle which includes free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet.

Eat First

Book Review

by Colette, BellaOnline's Women's Literature Host

July 2003

I am pleased to have Sonia Pressman Fuentes as my guest on the Coffeehouse this week. Ms. Fuentes is a remarkable woman to say the least. Not only is she a natural storyteller, she is also the first woman attorney in the General Counsel's Office at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a founder of the National Organization for Women and an international speaker on women's rights.

In 1966, Betty Freidan and a small group of women planned an organization that later became known as the National Organization of Women (NOW). On a paper napkin, Betty wrote that the purpose of the organization was "to take the actions needed to bring women into the mainstream of American society, now, full equality for women, in fully equal partnership with men."

Twenty-eight of those women signed up as NOW's first founders. Another twenty-six, of whom Sonia was one, met at an organizing conference that October and drafted a statement of purpose and skeletal bylaws. In order to get the EEOC to enforce Title VII for women, NOW filed lawsuits, petitioned the EEOC for public hearings, picketed the EEOC and the White House, and generally mobilized public opinion.

Sonia's debut novel "Eat First - You Don't Know What They'll Give You" is the wonderfully written story of Sonia Pressman Fuentes and her family. Eat First is the sometimes poignant, often hilarious, always fascinating chronicle of trials and tribulations. Beginning with the almost didn't happen wedding of her parents in Poland, moving on to the family's immigration to the United States to escape the Nazis and continuing with Sonia's own story, the adventures are non-stop.

For more about Sonia Pressman Fuentes please visit her web-site and be sure to tune into Colette's Coffeehouse this Friday on the Book Crazy Radio Network at 1, 5, 9, in the morning or afternoon. www.bookcrazy.net