About

Roy is the author of The Darkness in Lee’s Closet and the Others Waiting There, a middle grade dark fantasy published by Aelurus.

He is also the author of Is Superman Circumcised? How Jewish Culture Shaped the World's Greatest Hero (working title), a nonfiction book coming next year from McFarland.

Originally from Tel Aviv, Israel, Roy grew up a voracious reader of everything from Israeli novels to British plays to American comic books. He taught himself English from comics and cartoons, which is why he's comfortable using words like “swell.”

He served his three-year draft in the IDF in counterterrorism intelligence, reaching the rank of SFC, NCO. Following, he wrote for Ynet, Israel’s largest news website.

His love of writing brought him to New York, where he graduated magna cum laude from The New School University with a BA in English, majoring in creative writing, and cum laude from NYU with an interdisciplinary MA in English (focusing on 19th-century British and 20th-century American literature) and social thought. He interned for Marvel Comics.

Roy has written for newspapers, magazines and websites in the US and abroad. He’s also taught English and freshman seminars at CUNY, the City University of New York. He is a writer-in-residence at the New York Public Library.

His reading taste is still eclectic, ranging from Victorian romance novels to physiology journals, though his favorites are science fiction and fantasy in all their forms.

Roy lives in Long Island, NY with his wife Kim, a bestselling author and editor, their son Ethan, a smart and smiley toddler, and dog Inez, who’s not good at much but is very cute. When not writing books, Roy is the director of communications of a regional law firm. He has a penchant for caffeine, candy, and a quality-over-quantity wardrobe.

Books

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The Darkness in Lee’s Closet and the Others Waiting There

Lee just wants her dad back. But the land of the dead is a dangerous place.

When her father dies, Lee’s life is torn apart. The only comfort she finds is in the complete darkness of her closet, where she sleeps at night.

When she discovers the darkness leads to the afterlife, she hatches a plan—to find her dad and bring him back home.

With the help of four very talkative, very dead companions she finds trapped in the darkness, she sets off on a quest through the afterworlds.

But a little live girl does not belong there. Lee will have to face frightening dangers and use all her courage and cunning if she wishes to save her father, her friends, and herself.

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Is Superman Circumcised? How Jewish Culture Informed the World's Greatest Hero

(working title. Book due 2019.)

SUPERMAN is arguably the most famous man in the world. He's universally recognized, whether from the recent films starring Henry Cavill, the Christopher Reeve movies, the 1950s TV show, cartoons, comics, or just the endless paraphernalia that bears his famous "S" symbol.

He’s the first superhero, an original American icon – and he’s Jewish.

Introduced to the world in June 1938, the Man of Steel was created by two Jewish teens from Cleveland, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who gave their hero the origin story of Moses, the strength of Samson, and a nebbish secret identity based on themselves. They made him a refugee fleeing catastrophe on the eve of World War II and sent him to rip Nazi tanks apart two years before the US joined the war.

In following years, Superman's creators and their successors, almost all Jewish, continued to imbue him with Jewish motifs, basing Kryptonian society on Jewish culture, the trial of Lex Luthor on Adolf Eichmann's, and a holiday celebrating Superman on Passover.

Exploring these underlying themes of a modern mythology, Is Superman Circumcised? is a fascinating journey through comic book lore, American history and Jewish tradition, showing how Judaism inspired the world, for the second time, to look up in the sky.