Chester Aaron was born in a coal mine village in western Pennsylvania in 1923, during the Depression. His was the only Jewish family. A soldier in WW II, he participated in the liberation of Dachau. He became a Professor of Literature and a farmer in California. The author of 26 books (fiction, non-fiction; adult, young-adult), he has received various honors, including a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. His work has been translated into German, French, Dutch, and Chinese.
Nathalie Alyon is the Assistant Editor of the Journal of Levantine Studies published by the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. She received her B.A. from Brown University and recently completed an MA at Bar Ilan University’s Creative Writing program. “Soldiers on Crystal Horses” is her first fiction story to be accepted for publication and her non-fiction have appeared in Quaderns de la Mediterrània, JUF News, Zeek, and Ha’aretz. Nathalie blogs on intercultural living and travel at packthestory.com. Born in Israel to Turkish parents, Nathalie grew up in Istanbul, matured in the United States, and currently resides in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Isaac Babel was a short-story writer, playwright, literary translator and journalist. He joined the Red Army as a correspondent during the Russian civil war. A friend and protégé of Maxim Gorky, he was the first major Russian-Jewish writer to write in Russian and was hugely popular during his lifetime. Despite his popularity, his critical portrayal of the Cossack army in Red Cavalry made him significant enemies within the Soviet establishment. He was murdered in Stalin's purges in 1940, at the age of 45.
Patricia Baird Greene is a writer, activist, and homesteader who lives in New Hampshire. Her first novel, The Sabbath Garden, a YA published by Penguin USA, examined the relationship of a black teenager and an elderly Orthodox man on the Lower East Side of New York. It was called “a memorable and moving book that packs an honest urban punch.” Moment: The Jewish Magazine thought it a compelling and poetic portrait of diverse people that teaches Jewish values through example. She is now at work on a historical novel, The Paradise Bird, and on Coming of Age, a collection of short stories (of which this is one) about older people making new decisions.
Maria Bloshteyn was born in Leningrad and immigrated to Toronto, Canada at the age of 8. She is a scholar of comparative literature and culture, with a special interest in Dostoevsky’s reception in America. She is also a much anthologized literary translator. Roza Naumovna’s Recipes is a collection of short stories, inspired by the life and work of her grandmother, a professional chef. Maria hastens to add that her grandmother, unlike the fictional Roza Naumovna, was a sweet and gentle soul, who made Maria’s childhood not only happy but gastronomically delightful.
Mary Dingee Fillmore’s novel, An Address in Amsterdam, is the result of thirteen years of research and obsession with the Holocaust and resistance in the Netherlands, and what we can learn from them today. This story is a novel excerpt. Mary’s website and blog, http://seehiddenamsterdam.com/, provide an evolving collage of Amsterdam places to explore as well as a glimpse of the fast-fading history of the Nazi Occupation. Mary earned her M.F.A. at Vermont College in 2005. Her poetry has since appeared in such journals as Atlanta Review, Upstreet, Pearl, Diner, Westview, and Main Street Rag.
Eric Dreyer Smith lives in San Antonio. He graduated from Trinity University in 1989. Books published include No One Blames San Antonio for the Civil War and Eligible Atrocities. He is currently completing an M.A. in counseling and his hobbies include short film production.
Shoshana Razel Gordon Guedalia is mother; writer of poetry, fiction, narrative nonfiction, scholarly, and journalistic work; teacher, sermonizer, activist, aspiring rabbi, and doctoral student. Her short stories, poetry, and poetry in translation were published in Charles River Review, Harvard Summer Review, The Wick, Worcester Review, and Princeton’s Inventory Journal—articles, in Jewish Advocate of Greater Boston, Jewish Standard of NJ—and scholarly work in Keren (published by Yeshivat Maharat). Jerusalem-raised, she served in the IDF and studied Jewish Thought at Hebrew University. She has a Masters in Creative Writing and Literature from Harvard Extension School, and is now a doctoral student in comparative theology and religio-legal theory at Harvard Divinity School. She resides in Newton, MA with her five children.
Ayelet Gundar-Goshen was born in Israel in 1982. She holds an MA in Clinical Psychology from Tel Aviv University, has been a news editor on Israel’s leading newspaper and has worked for the Israeli civil rights movement. Her film scripts have won prizes at international festivals, including the Berlin Today Award and the New York City Short Film Festival Award. One Night, Markovitch, her first novel, won the Sapir Prize for best debut.
Rebecca Klempner is a wife, mother, and writer born in Baltimore, Maryland. Originally trained as an anthropologist, she spent six years teaching before becoming a stay-at-home mom. She now writes at a little desk in the corner of her bedroom in Los Angeles, California, while the kids are at school. Dozens of her short stories have appeared in Haredi magazines, most notably Hamodia, and you can find her personal essays online in Tablet and in print in Binah and Ami. Rebecca has additionally published one picture book, A Dozen Daisies for Raizy.
Olga Klinger was born in St. Petersburg, Russia and grew up in the Bay Area. She holds a B.A. in English and French from Pomona College and is currently on break from an M.A. in International Relations and Economics at Johns Hopkins University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in 34th Parallel Magazine and Straylight Literary Arts Magazine. Olga is currently working as an editor, and has also started her first novel. She lives and writes in San Francisco.
Ruth Knafo Setton is the author of the novel, The Road to Fez, and the recipient of literary fellowships and awards from the National Endowment of the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and PEN, and writers’ colonies, including Yaddo and MacDowell. Her poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Women Writing Desire, Becoming Myself: Reflections on Growing Up Female, The Schocken Book of Modern Sephardic Literature, Best Contemporary Jewish Writing, Arts & Letters, Tiferet, and The North American Review. She teaches courses in Jewish Literature and Creative Writing at Lehigh University and Semester at Sea, and is working on a new novel. Her website is: www.ruthknafosetton.com/
Yitzhak Laor, poet, novelist, essayist and playwright, was born in Pardes Hannah, Israel, in 1948. He received his PhD in theater and literature from Tel Aviv University, and writes editorials and literary reviews for the Hebrew daily Haaretz. In 1972, Laor was jailed for refusing to serve in the occupied territories, and his leftist opinions, expressed in his work, have continually nettled Israel`s mainstream establishment. In 2005, Laor founded and became editor of Mita’am, a Review of Literature and Radical Thought, which was a major arena for intellectual debate. Laor has published many collections of poetry, as well as novels, short stories, collections of essays and one play. Among his literary awards: the Prime Minister’s Prize, twice (1991; 2001), the Bernstein Prize for Poetry (1992), the Hebrew Literature Award (1994), the Moses Award (1998) and the Amichai Poetry Prize (2007).
Mackie Levine’s writing began while he was in the army. Along with his regular duties he was given the job of Information and Education Specialist, so he worked as a photojournalist for his last year there. It wasn’t until thirty years later that he started to write again. Writing was a hobby, a means of cathartic relief. He wrote short stories about memories and incidents around him. He has been writing now for thirty years and only recently have his friends read any of his work and encouraged him to submit some work to see if it was worthy of publication.
Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist and law professor, the author of numerous books of fiction and nonfiction including The Golems of Gotham, Second Hand Smoke and, most recently, How Sweet It Is!, where “Gimpel of Surfside” appears. He appears frequently in such publications as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Haaretz, Huffington Post, and the Daily Beast, among other national publications. He hosts The Talk Show at the 92nd Street Y. He is a Senior Fellow at New York University School of Law, where he directs the Forum on Law, Culture & Society. www.thanerosenbaum.com
Abby Rosenthal was born in Brooklyn, grew up in Queens and on Long Island, and lived in upstate New York, California, Oklahoma, Washington DC, and Wyoming before settling in Tennessee. In other words, she’s a wandering New Yorker. Her poems and stories have appeared in literary journals such as Alaska Quarterly, Bloomsbury Review, Carolina Quarterly, Chicago Review, Kansas Quarterly, andmost recently Southern Poetry Review and Weber, and she is the author of Ardor’s Hut, a book of poetry. She and her husband, poet Thomas Johnson, currently reside in Memphis. She has an MFA from Cornell University.
Boris Sandler was born in 1950 in Belz (Bessarabia). In 1975 he graduated from the Music Conservatory in Kishenev. He played violin in the Moldovan Symphony Orchestra. In 1983 he received the highest degree in literature from the Literary Institute in Moscow. Sandler is the author of fourteen books of fiction and poetry. His works have been translated into Russian, English, French, German, Hebrew and Romanian. Sandler was also a recipient of a number of prestigious Israeli literary awards. For his book Red Shoes for Rachel, he received the J. I. Segal Prize from the Jewish Public Library of Montreal in 2010 and the same award in 2014 for his novel Hidden Saints I Recall. Since April 1998 he is Editor-in-Chief of the Yiddish Forverts.
Edna Shemesh was born in Romania in 1953 and came to Israel with her family when she was five. She holds a BA in English literature and theater studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Shemesh has worked as a lecturer, and as a Hebrew-English-Hebrew translator; she is also a freelance journalist for the Hebrew and English-language press in Israel. Her short stories have been published in a number of literary periodicals. Shemesh has received the Women Writers of the Mediterranean Award sponsored by UNESCO (France, 2002), and won first prize in a short story competition held by the literary journal Iton 77 (2004).
Benjamin Tammuz (1919-1989) was born in Russia and immigrated to pre-state Israel at age 5. He studied law and economics at Tel Aviv University and later attended the Sorbonne, where he studied art history. A novelist, journalist, critic, painter and sculptor, Tammuz served for many years as literary editor of the daily Haaretz. He also spent four years in London as Israel’s cultural attaché, and was writer-in-residence at Oxford University from 1979 to 1984. Tammuz published novels and novellas, short stories, plays, and books for children. He received several literary prizes, including the Talpir Prize (1970), the Ze’ev Prize (1971) and the Prime Minister’s Prize (1978). His novel, Minotaur, was selected Book of the Year in England in 1981 - it was nominated by Grahame Greene. His work has been widely published abroad.
Gerald Tulchinsky is a historian at Queen's University, the author of numerous articles and book chapters, and five books on Canadian business and Jewish history, the most recent a biography of Joe Salsberg. Gerald Tulchinsky is an editor of books on immigration and local history, a writer of short stories, and the author of a collection, Shtetl on the Grand, which will appear in 2015.
