I’m late to the game in discovering Esther Goldenberg’s work. She has been enchanting readers for with her re-imagining of our biblical matriarchs in the first two books of The Desert Song Trilogy — The Scrolls of Deborah (2024) and Seventeen Spoons (2025). To prepare for this interview I read the final book in the trilogy - The Song of the Bluebird (2026). And I thoroughly enjoyed discovering through her imagination the might-have-beens of men and women I’ve known all my life, such as Leah and Dinah, especially the protagonist Serah, who may be a less well-known biblical character, but is no less fascinating. I now understand the allure of Esther’s work. BTW, unlike many trilogies, I was very comfortable starting with the last book. 'I’ve now put the other books high on my to-be-read list.
In this video, Esther reads a portion of The Song of the Bluebird. Then, we launch into a lively conversation about Serah, the challenge of creating lives for women who had little or no voice in the Bible, as well as her writing and research process, and what it was like to invent women’s spiritual rituals while eschewing the traditional biblical miracles.
About Esther Goldenberg
The daughter of an elementary school teacher who went on to teach like her mother, Esther Goldenberg considers herself an educator first, though she is also an editor and writer. Two of her non-fiction books -- Resistant to Reading: Tricks and Tips for Parents of Reluctant Readers and A Story Every Week: Torah Wisdom for Today's World -- were Amazon bestsellers in their categories. Esther’s The Desert Song Trilogy consists of The Scrolls of Deborah (which won the 2024 Foreword Indies gold medal for Religious Adult Fiction), Seventeen Spoons and The Song of the Bluebird. You can connect with her at EstherGoldenberg.com and on Instagram.
About Sally Wiener Grotta
The host of Judith Magazine’s Tell Me More, Sally Wiener Grotta (she/her), is an award-winning writer, photographer, and speaker. Her most recent book is Daughters of Eve (Bayit Publishing), an essay-based discussion workbook and journaling guide that mines the tales of biblical female archetypes to explore modern life, concerns, and crises. Her experience as a globetrotting journalist covering a wide diversity of cultures flavors her stories, art, and presentations with a sense of wonder, appreciation for human potential, and a healthy dose of common sense. Grotta is a member of The Authors Guild, the Association of Jewish Libraries and SFWA. Visit her website at SallyWienerGrotta.com and on her Substack, where you can view episodes of her other video podcast What If? Why Not? How? plus her essays, book recommendations, poems and the occasional guest essay.)
