Literary Modiin - June 2024 Event

About the authors:

Dawn Promislow was born and raised in South Africa and has lived in Toronto since 1987. She is the author of the novel Wan, which was a finalist for the Canadian Authors Association's Fred Kerner Book Award 2023, a Miramichi Best Fiction title of 2022, a CanLit Bookclub Pick in Zoomer magazine, and a finalist in the design category for an Alberta Book Publishing Award 2023. The novel was on several of CBC Books' recommended lists of historical fiction for 2022. Dawn is also the author of the short story collection Jewels and Other Stories, which was named one of the eight best fiction debuts of 2011 by the Globe and Mail, and was long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award 2011. She's had numerous award-nominated short stories, poems, and essays published in literary journals in Canada, the US, and the UK, and anthologized in books. She is working on a new novel.

Joan Leegant's story collection, DISPLACED PERSONS, winner of the New American Fiction Prize, will be out June 1, 2024. She is also the author of a novel, WHEREVER YOU GO, and a prior story collection, AN HOUR IN PARADISE, which won the PEN/New England Book Award, the Wallant Award for Jewish Fiction, and was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award and a a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick. Formerly a lawyer, Joan has taught at Harvard, Oklahoma State, Cornish College in Seattle, and Hebrew College in Boston. From 2007 to 2013, she was the visiting writer at the Shaindey Rudoff Creative Writing Program Bar-Ilan University where she also gave talks on American literature and culture under the auspices of the U.S. Embassy and was a volunteer ESL teacher for African refugees and asylum seekers, experiences that made their way into her fiction. She lives in Newton, Massachusetts. For more about Joan and her work, visit www.joanleegant.com.

Writer, podcaster and storyteller, Don Futterman has written for a variety of publications including The Daily Beast, Haaretz and The Times of Israel. A graduate of Brown University and the Wurzweiler School of Social Work, for the past 13 years Don has been a co-host of TLV1’s The Promised Podcast, a weekly review of Israeli politics and society with more than three million downloads. Don can also be heard on Futterman’s One-Man Show, a performance podcast of moving and funny autobiographical monologues. Don has published two children’s books in Hebrew, Yaniv’s Treasure (האוצר של יניב - הוצאת טל-מאי) and Up & Over (עד למעלה – הוצאת ספריית פיג'מה). Don is also the founding director of the Israel Center for Educational Innovation (ICEI), which transforms underperforming Jewish & Arab elementary schools serving low-income communities in Israel. He is the Israel Director of the Moriah Fund, a private American foundation working to advance civil rights and to promote equality and strengthen liberal democracy in the U.S. and Israel. Married with three children, Don grew up a public school boy in Flushing, Queens, NY and currently lives in Israel.