BYFI FALL FORUM: home>> full details & biographies

Session 1:(12-1:15pm)

Canon Fodder - What Distinguishes the New Generation of Jewish Writers From Their Predecessors?
Depending on who you ask, Jewish fiction is either dead, irrelevant, or experiencing an unprecedented renaissance. But one thing is certain, the writing and reference points of younger Jewish writers often differ greatly from that of the last generation.

Dara Horn received her Ph.D. in comparative literature from Harvard University in 2006, studying Hebrew and Yiddish. She has received several awards for both her first novel, In the Image, and her second novel, The World to Come, which has been translated into eleven languages. In 2007 Dara Horn was chosen by Granta magazine as one of the Best Young American Novelists. She has taught courses in Jewish literature and Israeli history at Harvard and at Sarah Lawrence College, and has lectured at universities and cultural institutions throughout the United States and Canada. She lives with her husband, daughter and son in New York City. Dara is an alumna of the Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel.

Rivka Galchen is the author of Atmospheric Disturbances, her first novel which was published in June 2008.

After completing her MD at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 2003, she was offered a Robert Bingham fellowship to study in the MFA program at Columbia University. Following Rivka’s completion of her degree from Columbia, she received a Rona Jaffe fellowship in fiction.Her often science-steeped fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Zoetrope, Open City, and BOMB, and her nonfiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Believer, Scientific American, Harper’s Magazine, and The New York Times.

Josh Henkin is the author of Swimming Across the Hudson, and most recently of the novel Matrimony, a New York Times Notable book, BookSense Pick and Borders Original voices selection. Josh’s short stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in many journals and newspapers. He teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, at Brooklyn College, and at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. He lives with his family in Brooklyn.

Moderator: Daniel Septimus is the Editor-in-Chief of MyJewishLearning.com. He hosts the 92nd Street Y's Jewish Literary Exchange and is the Book columnist for the Jerusalem Post.

Session 2:(1:30-2:30pm)

Babylon and On - Jewish Immigrant Stories from the Middle East
The story of migration from Europe has long dominated the American Jewish imagination. Today, new writers are presenting competing narratives born from the Jews of the Middle East, who were exiled in the 20th century from countries in which their ancestors had dwelled for centuries.

André Aciman is the author of the novel Call Me by Your Name, of Out of Egypt: A Memoir, and of False Papers: Essays on Exile and Memory. He has also co–authored and edited The Proust Project and Letters of Transit. Born in Alexandria, he lived in Italy and France. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and has taught at Princeton University and Bard College. He is currently the chair of The CUNY Graduate Center's Doctoral Program in
Comparative Literature and the director of The Writers' Institute at The Graduate Center. André is the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a fellowship from The New York Public Library's Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, The Paris Review, as well as in several volumes of The Best American Essays.

Dalia Sofer was born in Tehran, Iran, where she lived until the age of ten. After time in Israel she arrived in New York, where she attended the Lycée Français de New York, and later, New York University.

Ms. Sofer received an MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College. Her essays “Of These, Solitude” and “A Prenuptial Visit to Chartres” have been published in the anthologies Yentl’s Revenge: The Next Wave of Jewish Feminism (Seal Press, 2001) and France, a Love Story (Seal Press, 2004). Her first novel, The Septembers of Shiraz, debuted in the spring of 2008. A regular contributor to publications such as Poets & Writers magazine and the Academy of American Poets’ National Poetry Almanac, Ms. Sofer lives in New York City.

Ariel Sabar is the author of My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq. He covered the 2008 U.S. presidential campaigns for the Christian Science Monitor and is a former staff writer for the Baltimore Sun and the Providence (RI) Journal. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, the Washington Monthly, Mother Jones magazine, and other publications. He lives with his wife and two children in Washington, DC.

Moderator: Sara Ivry is a senior editor at Nextbook.org, where she hosts a weekly podcast on Jewish culture. She has written for The New York Times, The Boston Globe The, San Francisco Chronicle, Real Simple, and other publications.

Session 3:(2:45-4pm)

What Isn't Jewish Writing, These Days? - Jews and the Shape of American Culture?
The past decade has seen a blurring of lines between Jewish culture and American life. Words like chutzpa and kvetch have become part of the vernacular, and Jewish writers play a prominent role in every form of culture, from comic books to novels. Writers share their perspectives on the role of Jewishness in contemporary American culture.

Danny Fingeroth was the longtime Group Editor of Marvel Comics' Spider-Man line, consulted on early versions of 2002's Spider-Man movie, and has written many comics for Marvel and other companies. He's the author of Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero (Continuum), Superman On the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society (Continuum), and The Rough Guide to Graphic Novels (Penguin). Danny is editor-in-chief of TwoMorrows' Write Now! magazine, the premier publication about writing for comics and animation. He teaches comics and graphic novel writing and appreciation at New York University and The New School. He has spoken about comics and graphic novels at several venues, as well as on National Public Radio's All Things Considered and NBC's Today Show, and has written about them for publications including The Los Angeles Times and The Baltimore Sun.

Itamar Moses is the author of the full-length plays Outrage, Bach at Leipzig, Celebrity
Row, The Four of Us, Yellowjackets, Back Back Back, Completeness, and The Den; the musicals Reality! (with Gaby Alter) and Fortress of Solitude (with Michael Friedman and Daniel Aukin); and various short plays and one-acts. His work has appeared Off-Broadway and elsewhere in New York and at regional theatres across the country and in Canada. Itamar holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU and has taught playwriting at Yale and NYU. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, MCC Playwrights Coalition, Naked Angels Writers Group, and is a New York Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect. Itamar was born in Berkeley, CA and now lives in Brooklyn, NY. Itamar is an alumnus of the Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel.

Elisa Albert is the author of The Book of Dahlia, a novel, and How this Night is Different, a collection of stories. She is fiction editor at Nextbook, an editor-at-large of Jewcy, and adjunct assistant professor of creative writing at Columbia University

Moderator: Jeremy Dauber is the Atran Associate Professor of Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture at Columbia University and the director of Columbia's Institute of Israel and Jewish Studies. His most recent book, with Joel Berkowitz, is Landmark Yiddish Plays, and he lectures on topics related to Jewish literature and popular culture at the 92nd St Y and venues around the United States. He is a program consultant for Nextbook.