Dr. Ellen Frankel served for 18 years as Editor in Chief of The Jewish Publication Society. She received her B.A. from University of Michigan and her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Princeton. She is the author of twelve books, including The Encyclopedia of Jewish Symbols; The Five Books of Miriam; JPS Illustrated Children’s Bible, and the three volume The Jerusalem Mysteries. Frankel has written librettos for chamber pieces, including “Hagar,” “Mothers of Moses,” and “The Esther Diaries,” and two operas, Slaying the Dragon and The Triangle Fire. Philadelphia’s Mendelssohn Chorus has performed her cantatas, The Golem Psalms and Beyond the Binary. Frankel is currently working on a novel.
Joseph Kertes founded Humber College’s creative writing and comedy programs and was the recipient of numerous awards for teaching and innovation. Kertes was born in Hungary but escaped with his family during the Revolution of 1956. He studied English at York University and the University of Toronto. He was for many years Humber’s Dean of Creative and Performing Arts. His first novel, Winter Tulips, won the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour. His third novel, Gratitude, won a Canadian National Jewish Book Award and the U.S. National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. His novel, The Afterlife of Stars, was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice. His latest novel is called Last Impressions, a finalist for a second Leacock Award. He was the recipient of the 2017 Harbourfront Festival Prize for his contribution to literature and to the literary community.
Michael P. Kramer, PhD, is Professor Emeritus and former director of the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar Ilan University, Israel. A scholar, editor and translator, he has published widely on Jewish and Jewish American literature. His recent projects include: an annotated translation of S.Y. Agnon’s And The Crooked Shall Be Made Straight (Toby Press); a special issue of Studies in American Jewish Literature on “The Literature of Jewish American Periodicals” (forthcoming); an anthology of Emma Lazarus’s poetry and prose for The Library of the Jewish People (in progress); and a translation from Hebrew of award-winning author Roy Chen’s novel, Neshamot (in progress). He is a Fellow of the Sami Rohr Institute for Jewish Literature.
Norman Manea, born in Bukovina, Romania, was deported as a child to the concentration camp in Transnistria and was persecuted by the Communist dictatorship in Romania. He left Romania in 1986, lived one year in West Berlin, and moved to the United States in 1988. He is the author of prose and essays that has been translated into more than twenty languages, and the laureate of several international literary prizes (among them the McArthur and Guggenheim Fellowship Awards, the Italian international Nonino Prize for literature, and the Prix Medicis Etrangère). He is a member of the Berlin Academy of Art, and was decorated with the Légion d’honneur by the French government. Manea is also a former Professor of European Culture and Writer-in-Residence at Bard College.
Thane Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, law professor and Distinguished University Professor at Touro University, and the author of numerous books of fiction and nonfiction. including, How Sweet It Is!, The Golems of Gotham, Second Hand Smoke, and the novel-in-stories, Elijah Visible. He is also the author of the forthcoming young adult novel, The Stranger Within Sarah Stein. He is a Columnist for the Jewish Journal, for which he has received the Louis Rapoport Award for Excellence in Commentary, and the Simon Rockower Award for Excellence in Cultural Criticism. He is a Contributor to the White Rose Magazine and a Senior Political Analyst for the Jewish TV Channel. He has written widely for major news publications and appears on cable news channels. He is the creative director of the Forum on Life, Culture & Society.
Steve Stern was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. He has published a number of novels, novellas, and story collections, including The Wedding Jester, which won the National Jewish Book Award. He has been the recipient of grants from the Fulbright and Guggenheim foundations, and taught creative writing at Skidmore College for thirty years. His forthcoming novel is A Fool’s Kabbalah.
