Tell us a little about yourself and your writing goals.
My name is Oded. I was born and raised in Tel Aviv, Israel. I moved to Los Angeles in 1986 and started working as a video editor in a small studio in Hollywood. A few years later, as that studio closed down, I landed an intern job as an animator in a medium size company. I quickly joined the team and worked on movies, tv shows (Star Trek Deep Space 9) and when this company closed as well…, not my fault I promise, I got a job in Sony Imageworks. I worked with Robert Zemeckis on all of his motion performance movies. It was very interesting and very new at the time. I continued working with the same team when Zemeckis left Sony to start his own studio, Image Movers Digital. And some years later, when that studio was shut down by Disney, I was free to venture, on my own, and I took a journey of creativity. That journey led me to acting, writing, painting, and more importantly, to realizing how important creating is in my life.
I don’t have writing goals as you might expect them to be. I write of myself. I don’t try to imagine who will want my wiring, or what will work ‘out there’. I write when I feel that I have something to tell. That is why I changed my definition of my creativity to “storyteller’. I tell stories with my writing, my acting, my painting and with any form of creative endeavor I choose to take.
Five things I learned while writing this book:
- I love writing.
- I am at my best when I don’t think too much and let the flow of thru me.
- Even though I wrote about myself and experiences that I had, many others can and will relate to it, understand it and some might even take lessons from it, for their own personal journey.
- If something makes me tear up, become emotional, I know that I found a great point of release and I stay with it, letting it well up until it’s gone.
- For the first time I am doing some research for a fiction piece I started writing, and I can see how I can take actual facts from my research as a starting point, and then use my imagination to take it wherever I want it to go.
What was the most difficult part of writing this book? Why?
Because some of my book is about some very challenging times in my life, it was difficult to go back there, bring it up and experience it again. Sometimes events that I forgot, and maybe didn’t want to remember, floated up and I found myself dealing with them. In retrospect I know that all this was cathartic and very healing for me, but while writing, it was not easy.
Five random facts about this book:
- The story happened in a time where there were no cellphones, internet, etc.
- My mom’s name is Esther.
- When I wrote is I remember thinking very swiftly that it might become a book one day.
- I was born in December.
- The photo on the cover of the paperback version is really me with the person I tell about in the book, Gil.
Five personalities from the book:
- Mostly Type B.
- Mostly Type B.
- My mom. Mostly Type C.
- My dad. Mostly Type C.
- Mostly Type C.
What is your advice for new writers?
My advice for new writers is simple: Be yourself. Write for yourself. Plan less and write more.
I understand that some genres need more planning, but especially for new writers, I believe that the writing itself is more important than anything. I know I am in a good place when I stop writing to go back and read what it is that ‘came out of me’, because I was so ‘in the zone’ that I missed some… The idea of writing for oneself is the antidote to trying to understand or find out what will make others happy. What will ‘they’ want to read. That may sound like a good idea, but really it takes away the freedom of the flow and outs limitations on our writing. When my writing was becoming my one man show, I was rehearsing with a director and a producer and we realize, together, that some parts need to be cut out, and also that we needed to extend the ending to include a more hopeful and optimistic feel. This was in consideration to the audience, but not to please anyone. It is very similar in auditions. When I go on an audition, I never try to discover what do ‘they’ want me to be, to express, to become. I perform with what I understand is the way to audition, and I know that I might be given new facts or ideas to include in my performance. Finally, what I would say to new writers, and probably to experienced ones too: be nice with yourselves. Don’t out yourself down if you wanted to write every day for an hour, and you wound up writing one time for 10 minutes. Treat your creating self as a small child. That child needs support and love more than anything. Be there for them. Support them unconditionally. Love them. Love yourself. You are perfect always. Close your eyes. Place your hand on your heart and say to yourself:
“Thank you. I love you.”
Book Title: The Book of Oded, Chapter 2
Author and Publisher: Oded Kassirer
Release Date: October 8, 2025
Genres: Gay Non-Fiction Memoir
Tropes: A kind of forbidden love
Themes: Coming out, HIV/AIDS
Length: approx. 25 000 words/ 94 pages
Heat Rating: No sexual content
It is a standalone book and does not end on a cliffhanger.
Buy Links – Available in Paperback and Kindle Unlimited
Paperback also available from IngramSpark
A Story of Love in 17 parts
A poetic and deeply personal exploration of love, identity, and spiritual truth through a queer lens — part reflection, part quiet confession. This book speaks to anyone who’s searched for belonging or inner peace.
Blurb
The Book of Oded, Chapter 2: A Story of Love in 17 Parts is a true story told through seventeen short reflections, each introduced by a photograph.
This real-life memoir follows Oded Kassirer’s journey through love in its many forms—love that comforts, love that tests us, and love that stays even when people are gone. With honesty and openness, Oded shares moments from his own life, weaving together memory, relationships, and the everyday search for meaning.
Each part begins with an image, creating a rhythm of words and photos that invite the reader to pause, reflect, and connect. The book moves gently between joy and loss, humor and sorrow, offering a window into how love shapes us over time.
The Book of Oded, Chapter 2 is both deeply personal and universal—a reminder that behind every story of one life, there is also the story of love itself.
Looks like I don’t have to do that anymore, since Gil and I are dating now. Well… Gil being a lieutenant in the Israeli army, we only see each other once every two or three weeks, for maybe a day and a half. So we’re dating-lite.
But there’s more. You see, I’m out, and Gil is… well, I’m in a bigger closet than Gil.. OK, let me explain something about coming out and closets: you don’t just come out once and you’re done. No. You come out of the closet you’re in, into a slightly bigger closet. First, friends know. Then some family. Then all family, maybe a few coworkers. And so on, into bigger and bigger closets, until one day you think you’re totally out. But when you hesitate to put a photo of you and your boyfriend on your work desk, you realize: you’re still in a closet. A really big one, but still a closet.
So in my case, my friends know, and some of my family knows too. But as I start dating Gil, I find myself stepping backwards into a smaller closet. Back to lying to my family and friends. They ask: “So how do you know this guy Gil? He’s four, five years younger than you.”
“Oh, he’s my friend.”
“But we are your friends…”
And with Gil’s family it’s worse. We have to invent a background story, making sure our lies match. It’s back to lying and living a double life — something I’ve always hated.
Maybe because we don’t actually live together, and only see each other once in a while, I agree to it. Maybe I don’t value enough the freedom of being out. Or maybe I need to go through this to finally understand it.
And so Gil and I continue to keep our relationship very low profile. We have to be creative to communicate. Gil is stationed at a small base in the Golan Heights, just a few hours north of Tel Aviv, right on the border with Syria. When I call him, I can’t say what I really want to say. All the lines are tapped—not to catch gay soldiers, but to make sure nobody leaks classified information. Gil, being an intelligence lieutenant, is very aware of this. So even saying “I miss you” is, for him, like shouting into the phone: “GAY! GAY! GAY!”
So we come up with a code. We both love listening to Sarah Vaughan, the jazz singer. “Sarah” becomes our password. Our way of saying what we can’t.
“Hey Gil, how are you? Oh, by the way, Sarah really misses you.”
“Tell her I miss her too.”
“And she wants you to know that she loves you.”
“Tell her I love her too.”
It works—until one day, Gil can’t come to the phone and I leave a message with someone else: “Could you please tell Gil that… Sarah misses him?” When Gil finds out, all hell breaks loose.
Oded Kassirer was born and raised in Tel Aviv, Israel, and moved to Los Angeles in 1988. His creative journey began in film and animation, where he worked on major studio projects before turning toward acting, writing, and personal storytelling.
Alongside his career in the arts, Oded has explored photography and visual expression, blending images and words to reflect the intimate moments of everyday life. The Book of Oded: A Story of Love in 17 Parts is his first book – a true story that combines memoir and photographs in a deeply personal exploration of love, memory, and connection.
He lives in Los Angeles, with his husband, Oscar.
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