BAM, in association with the Jewish Book Council, presents "Emerging Jewish Writers" --readings and a panel of celebrated young Jewish authors featuring Shalom Auslander, Jennifer Gilmore, Aaron Hamburger, and Rachel Kadish--moderated by Alana Newhouse

March 7th, 2007 at 8:00pm in the BAMcafe
30 Lafayette Avenue
Brooklyn, New York

--As part of the 2007 Steinhardt Jewish Heritage Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music, in association with the Jewish Book Council, presents a special literary event on March 7 entitled "Emerging Jewish Writers." The event features four up-and-coming Jewish authors--Shalom Auslander, Jennifer Gilmore, Aaron Hamburger, and Rachel Kadish--all of whom are exploring and re-imagining the concept of Jewish identity for the 21st-century. The program will begin with these acclaimed writers reading from their own works, followed by a panel discussion with moderator Alana Newhouse (Arts and Culture Editor at The Forward) and an audience Q&A. A book signing and opportunity to mingle with the authors will follow--featuring live music and hors d'oeuvres service. Complimentary wine and beverages will be provided throughout the evening.

Now in its fourth year, the Steinhardt Jewish Heritage Festival at BAM presents an array of contemporary, Jewish-themed programs in a secular environment. The 2007 Festival also includes the March 10th Brooklyn Philharmonic performance of works by Osvaldo Golijov (Last Round and Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind) and two evenings in the BAMcafe Live series, featuring The Hip-Hop Hafla Purim Party on March 3rd and Asefa Music on March 10th.

Tickets for the event are $10 and may be purchased by calling 718.636.4100 or by visiting www.BAM.org.

About the Authors
Nominated for the Koret Award for writers under 35, Shalom Auslander has published articles in Esquire, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and has read stories on NPR's "This American Life." His short story collection, Beware of God, was published in 2005. His next book, Foreskin's Lament, will be published in the fall of 2007. He lives in New York.

Jennifer Gilmore received her BA from Brandeis University in 1992 and her MFA in Fiction from Cornell in 1997. She has taught Creative Writing and Jewish American Literature, has been an editor of the literary magazine Epoch, and has also worked in radio as host and producer of KCMU's "Talking Fiction," and as a writer on WNYC's "Leonard Lopate Show." Gilmore's work has appeared in various magazines and journals including Allure, BookForum, and The New York Times Magazine. Her essays have been anthologized in The Friend Who Got Away and are forthcoming in Eight Nights and Bad Girls: 25 Writers Misbehave. Her first novel, Golden Country was published in September 2006 and was a New York Times Notable Book of 2006. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Aaron Hamburger was awarded the Rome Prize by the American Academy of Arts and Letters for his short story collection The View From Stalin's Head (Random House, 2004). His novel Faith for Beginners was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and has just come out in paperback. He received his BA from University of Michigan in 1995 and currently teaches creative writing at Columbia University.

Rachel Kadish is the author of the novels From a Sealed Room and Tolstoy Lied: a Love Story. She has published short fiction in magazines including Story, Zoetrope, and Pakn Treger; her fiction has been anthologized in Lost Tribe: New Jewish Fiction from the Edge, and The Pushcart Prize Anthology. Her essays have appeared in Real Simple and Tin House magazines and in anthologies such as The Modern Jewish Girl's Guide to Guilt and Who We Are: On Being (And Not Being) a Jewish Writer in America (both books were winners of 2005 National Jewish Book Awards). She has received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and the Koret Foundation's 2005 Young Writer on Jewish Themes award, and was a writer-in-residence at Stanford University last autumn. She lives outside Boston and teaches in Lesley University's MFA program.

Alana Newhouse [moderator] is the arts and culture editor at the Forward newspaper. Her work has also appeared The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe Ideas section, and Slate, and she is the editor of A Living Lens: Photographs of Jewish Life from the Pages of the Forward, out this April from W.W. Norton.

Credits

Leadership support for the Steinhardt Jewish Heritage Festival is provided by Judy & Michael Steinhardt

BAMcafe Live events are sponsored by Con Edison with additional support from Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust and the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. The BAMcafe piano is provided by Deutsche Bank.

Programming in BAM Lepercq Space is supported by The Lepercq Foundation.

BAM thanks its many donors and sponsors, including: New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; The New York City Council; Brooklyn Delegation of the New York City Council; Brooklyn Delegation of the U.S. House of Representatives; Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz; New York State Council on the Arts; National Endowment for the Arts; New York State Assembly Brooklyn Delegation; The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation; Estate of Richard B. Fisher; New York State Music Fund; The Starr Foundation; JPMorgan Chase; Carnegie Corporation of New York; The Ford Foundation; The Shubert Foundation, Inc.; Time Warner Inc.; The Kovner Foundation; The Florence Gould Foundation; The Howard Gilman Foundation; The SHS Foundation; Skirball Foundation; and The Isak and Rose Weinman Foundation, Inc. New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge is the official hotel for the 2007 Spring Season. Yamaha is the official piano for BAM. R/GA is the sponsor for BAM.org.

General Information

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, BAM Rose Cinemas, BAMcafe, and Shakespeare & Co. BAMshop are located in the Peter Jay Sharp building at 30 Lafayette Avenue (between St Felix Street and Ashland Place) in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. BAM Harvey Theater is located two blocks from the main building at 651 Fulton Street (between Ashland and Rockwell Places). BAM Rose Cinemas is Brooklyn's only movie house dedicated to first-run independent and foreign film and repertory programming. BAMcafe, operated by Great Performances, is open for dining prior to Howard Gilman Opera House performances. BAMcafe also features an eclectic mix of spoken word and live music for BAMcafe Live nights on Friday and Saturday with a special BAMcafe Live menu available starting at 8pm.

Directions

Subway: 2, 3, 4, 5, Q, B to Atlantic Avenue;
D, M, N, R to Pacific Street; G to Fulton Street; C to Lafayette Avenue
Train: Long Island Railroad to Flatbush Avenue
Bus: B25, B26, B41, B45, B52, B63, B67 all stop within three blocks of BAM
Car: Commercial parking lots are located adjacent to BAM