People of the Book

Meryl chats with Zibby Owens about her new memoir, Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature, in which she shares her personal journey of loss, anxiety, food issues, finding love, reverence for literature -- and ultimately reinvention and fulfillment. They also discuss Zibby’s many other ventures, including Zibby Mag, Zibby Books, and her podcast, Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books!

Zibby is a podcaster, author, CEO, and mother of four. Zibby founded Zibby Media which includes Zibby Books, a publishing home for fiction and memoir, Zibby Mag, a literary lifestyle destination, and Zibby Audio, a podcast network, which includes her own award-winning daily show Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books. Named “NYC’s Most Powerful Book-fluencer” by Vulture, Zibby is a regular contributor to "Good Morning America," a media personality, and an avid essayist. She has edited two anthologies, written a children’s book, Princess Charming, and released a memoir, Bookends: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Literature. A graduate of Yale and Harvard Business School, she currently lives in New York (and sometimes L.A.) with her four children and her husband Kyle Owens, founder and CEO of Morning Moon Productions.

Instagram: Instagram: @zibbyowens

Zibby Mag Website: zibbymag.com/

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On today’s episode of People of the Book, Meryl chats with Isabel Vincent about her new book, Overture of Hope: Two Sisters’ Daring Plan That Saved Opera’s Jewish Stars from the Third Reich. The book chronicles the amazing story of two English sisters – both opera buffs and spinsters -- who mastermind a daring plan to rescue Jewish opera stars in Germany and Austria from the Nazis and get them to safety in England.

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Meryl and her husband Stewart Ain, a veteran journalist and recent kidney recipient, chat with Martha Gershun about her book, Kidney to Share (2021), which she co-authored with John Lantos, MD. The book chronicles Martha’s experience as an altruistic kidney donor and provides a medical perspective about kidney transplants.

In 2018 Martha Gershun donated a kidney at the Mayo Clinic to a woman she read about in a Jewish newspaper. She then co-authored a book, Kidney to Share, published by Cornell University Press in 2021. She was later named Special Advisor to the Kidney Transplant Collaborative and serves on the regional board of the National Kidney Foundation.

Martha is a retired Executive Director of Jackson County CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) and now provides executive coaching, board development, and strategy consulting services to non-profit clients. Martha lives in Fairway, Kansas with her husband Don Goldman, who is executive director and CEO of Jewish Family Services of Greater Kansas City.

Martha’s website:

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Meryl chats with Elan Barnehama about his new novel, Escape Route, which takes place in the late 1960s during the War in Vietnam. It is a coming-of-age story seen through the eyes of the teenage son of Holocaust survivors.

Escape Route (published in May 2022) is Elan Barnehama’s second novel. It’s set in New York City during the tumultuous late 1960s and told by Zach, the first-generation son of Holocaust survivors. An avid NY Mets fan, Zach becomes obsessed with the Vietnam War and with finding an escape route for his family for when he believes the US will round up and incarcerate its Jews.

Elan’s writing has appeared on numerous sites, including the Jewish Writing Project, Rough Cut Press, Boston Accent, Jewish Fiction, HuffPost, the New York Journal of Books, and Public Radio. He earned an MFA from UMass, Amherst and a BA from Binghamton. Elan has taught college writing, worked with at-risk youth, had a gig as a radio news guy, and also worked as a short-order cook. He's from New York and says he is a Mets fan by default.

Website: elanbarnehama.com

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Meryl chats with Susan Weidman Schneider, editor-in-chief of Lilith Magazine, about the anthology she co-edited, Frankly Feminist, which features 44 short stories that have been published in Lilith over the past 45 years. They also discuss the history and mission of Lilith Magazine and Susan’s role as editor-in-chief, since its launch in 1976. One of Lilith’s founding mothers, Susan has been editor-in-chief of the magazine since it launched in 1976. Lilith’s mission is to be the feminist change-agent in and for the Jewish community. Susan’s writing about Jewish women’s philanthropy, the Jewish stake in abortion rights, the persistence of gender stereotyping and more have been credited with moving the needle on feminist change in the Jewish world. She’s the author of Jewish and Female and Intermarriage, and co-author of Head and Heart, a book about money in the lives of women. 

She is the co-editor, along with Yona Zeldis McDonough, of a brand new short story collection titled Frankly Feminist. The book includes stories by 44 authors, whose works have been published in Lilith over the last 45 years. 

Born in Winnipeg, Canada, she is a graduate of Brandeis University. 

Website: lilith.org 

Facebook: www.facebook.com/LilithMagazine 

Publisher: https://brandeisuniversitypress.com/title/9781684581269/ 

Instagram: @lilithmagazine 

Twitter: @LilithMagazine 

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Meryl chats with Jacquie Herz about her 2021 novel, Circumference of Silence, which draws on her family’s memories as Jews in Europe under Hitler and their refugee experiences, first in London during the second world war and, later, in New York.

Jacquie was born in London, shortly after the end of World War II, to a family of Jewish refugees who fled Hitler’s Europe. When she was eight, her parents divorced and her mother left London to go and live with her own parents, who had already immigrated to New York. So, coming to America to be with her mother was her childhood’s life-long dream. And because letter-writing was the only way to communicate with her mother at the time, writing became an integral and necessary part of her life from that very early age.

Her debut novel, Circumference of Silence—published in July 2021 by Black Rose Writing—draws on her family’s memories as Jews in Europe under Hitler and their refugee experiences, first in London during the second world war and, later on, in New York. She has also been published in the Metropolitan Diary and the Connecticut Section of the New York Times. She is a member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association and the Women’s National Book Association.

Author’s website: https://www.jacquieherz.com/

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Meryl chats with Rose Ross and Ruth Rotkowitz about their post-Holocaust novels, which were influenced by their first-hand experiences as children of survivors. They talk about the influences on their lives and the responsibility they share to keep alive the story of the Holocaust and its impact.

Ruth Rotkowitz is the author of two novels, Escaping the Whale and the prequel, The Whale Surfaces. She has published fiction, nonfiction, and poetry in literary journals, and was a staff writer and member of the editorial board of the Woman’s Newspaper of Princeton for several years, where her feature articles garnered awards in journalism. She holds a B.A. and M.A. in English and has taught English on both the college and high school levels. She currently conducts book programs for the Phoenix Holocaust Association.

Rose Ross was the first child born in Neushadt, Germany in a Displaced Persons Camp (1946). “Growing up in the Bronx, the only child of Holocaust Survivors affected me deeply, filling up my mind and the very air I breathed.” says Ross. Their story and the stories of other survivors and the second generation children with whom she grew up were the motivation for LILA, her first novel, which she wrote at 73. Rose, a former actress, is also the author of TAR BEACH MEMORIES, a screenplay about growing up in the Bronx. Ross is currently working on a stage play exploring the relationship with her mother set in the safety of movie theaters over thirty years.

Ruth Rotkowitz: https://www.ruthswhale.com.

Rose Ross: https://roserossauthor.com/

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Meryl chats with Roni Robbins about her 2022 novel, Hands of Gold, which is loosely based on her paternal grandfather’s cassette tapes. Using literary license, she writes about how he survived TB, a workplace shooting and an accidental killing, and walked thousands of miles across several countries to flee anti-Semitism in pre-Nazi Europe.

Roni has worked for 35 years as a published writer. Currently an editor/writer for Medscape/WebMD and previously associate editor of the Atlanta Jewish Times/The Times of Israel, she has also been a staff reporter for Florida Today/USA Today and The Birmingham News, among others.  Her articles have appeared in The Huffington Post, Forbes, the New York Daily News, Hadassah Magazine and The Forward, to name a few. Her first novel Hands of Gold was published in February 2022. It is a work of fiction loosely based on an inspiring true story. Using literary license, she pulls from the original cassette tapes left by her maternal grandfather, who survived TB, a workplace shooting and an accidental killing, and walked thousands of miles across several countries to flee anti-Semitism in pre-Nazi Europe.

Roni grew up in Hauppauge, Long Island and moved to Asheville, North Carolina after she graduated from high school. She graduated from the University of South Carolina, where she majored in journalism. She and her husband, Ian, currently live in a suburb of Atlanta. They have two grown children.

Author’s website:  https://ronirobbins.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/roni.robbins.3

Instagram: @handsofgoldnovel

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ronirobbins

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Meryl chats with Brad Kolodny about his new book, The Jews of Long Island 1705-1918, which chronicles the roots of the Jewish experience on Long Island, why Jews decided to move to Nassau and Suffolk counties, and how they established their communities there. He also discusses plans to establish a Jewish museum on the island under the auspices of the Jewish Historical Society of L.I.

Brad Kolodny is the author of the award-winning book, Seeking Sanctuary: 125 Years of Synagogues on Long Island, which was published in 2019. It features more than 350 original photographs and archival images. Brad has photographed more than 600 synagogues in 13 countries over the last 30 plus years including every synagogue building from Great Neck to Montauk. His new book, The Jews of Long Island 1705-1918 published by SUNY Press, was released in March. Brad has worked for The New York Times since 1996, is president of the Jewish Historical Society of Long Island and an active member at Midway Jewish Center in Syosset, New York.

Brad’s website: synagogueslongisland.wixsite.com/synagoguesofli

Brad’s book information: sunypress.edu/Books/T/The-Jews-of-Long-Island

Long Island Jewish History group on Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/214277543566687

Jewish Historical Society of Long Island: www.jhsli.org/

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Meryl chats with Jacqueline Friedland about her new novel, He Gets That From Me (September 2021), which tells the story of a young woman who serves as a surrogate mother and subsequently discovers that she has unwittingly given away her own biological child. They also talk about Jacqueline’s two other award-winning novels, Trouble the Water and That’s Not a Thing, and how she tackles diverse genres.

Jacqueline is the multi-award-winning author of That's Not a Thing and Trouble the Water. Her new bestselling novel, He Gets That From Me, was published in September 2021. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and NYU Law School, she practiced law and later taught legal writing and lawyering skills while she began working on her first book in her spare time. After she decided to embrace her passion and pursue writing full time, Jacqueline returned to school to earn her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, graduating from the program in 2016. When not writing, Jacqueline is an avid reader of all things fiction. She loves to exercise, watch movies with her family, listen to music, make lists, and dream about exotic vacations. She lives in Westchester, New York with her husband, four children and two very bossy canines.

Website:  www.jacquelinefriedland.com/

Facebook: www.facebook.com/JacquelineFriedlandAuthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jbfriedland

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jackiefriedland/

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