Erica Baas

Rab­bi Corinne Cop­nick has enjoyed an inno­v­a­tive pro­fes­sion­al life steeped in the arts: radio actress, art gallery own­er, award-win­ning writer, and moth­er of 4. An ordained rab­bi, at 79 she cruised the world as Guest Staff. Now 88, a for­mer rab­binic court Gov­er­nor, she still lec­tures, writes, and pod­casts on vital topics. Title: Mir­a­cles Are What You Make of Them Description: Mir­a­cles Are What You Make of Them is an oasis of hope in our chaot­ic world. An inspi­ra­tional take on con­tem­po­rary life intend­ed for every­one, this 2023 book describes the ​“Will to Con­tin­ue” and the ​“Will to Hope” as inter­twined — along with the impe­tus to act on them — at any age. In a time of increas­ing soci­etal and polit­i­cal pres­sures, ground­break­ing tech­no­log­i­cal advances, height­ened glob­al ten­sions, and a loom­ing cli­mate cri­sis, what val­ues sus­tain us? What gives our lives pur­pose? Who shares our mem­o­ries? How can we cre­ate our future? Writ­ten from the per­spec­tive of a vin­tage orig­i­nal (an elder, learned Jew­ish woman), Mir­a­cles Are What You Make of Them res­onates with Bib­li­cal and Tal­mu­dic insights high­light­ed by real-life sto­ries that reflect over­com­ing cir­cum­stances. The author’s deeply-felt words (and lyri­cal poems) become an eth­i­cal will for trans­for­ma­tive liv­ing. “…we are nev­er too old to teach younger gen­er­a­tions how to be hope­ful too.” CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Rick Falkowski has been involved in all aspects of WNY entertainment during the past 55 years. He is the founder of the Buffalo Music Hall of Fame and Buffalo Music Awards, former publisher of Buffalo Backstage Magazine, entertainment coordinator of Tonawanda's Gateway Harbor Concerts, former representative of the American Society of Authors Composers & Publishers (ASCAP) and a Time Warner retiree. He presents classes on the History of Buffalo Music & Entertainment and Buffalo History at libraries, community centers, schools, senior living centers and for various organizations. In addition, Rick is the author of History of Buffalo Music & Entertainment (2017) and Profiles Volume I: Historic & Influential People from Buffalo & WNY – the 1800s (2019). His latest book, Profiles Volume II: Historic & Influential People from Buffalo and WNY – the Early 1900s, was published in November 2021. Book: Profiles Volume II: Historic & Influential People from Buffalo & WNY – the Early 1900s profiles 75 people that contributed to industry, business, politics, law, communications, sports, entertainment, and culture in Western New York during the early 1900s (1900 to 1950). The book differs from Volume I: Historic & Influential People from Buffalo & WNY - the 1800s as […]

Mari­na Gern­er is an award-win­ning finan­cial jour­nal­ist and Adjunct Pro­fes­sor of Cul­ture and Com­merce at NYU Stern School of Busi­ness. Her work has been pub­lished in The Economist’s 1843, The Wall Street Jour­nal, The Guardian, Finan­cial Times, Wired, The Times Lit­er­ary Sup­ple­ment, and Jew­ish Chron­i­cle. She has received a book grant from the pres­ti­gious Alfred P. Sloan Foun­da­tion for this book. Title: The Vagi­na Busi­ness: The Inno­v­a­tive Break­throughs that Could Change Every­thing in Wom­en’s Health Description: A crit­i­cal explo­ration into why male investors are afraid of the v‑word, what that means for women’s health and sex­u­al well­ness, and how we can over­come it. Women make over 80% of health­care deci­sions in the U.S. yet have been exclud­ed from design­ing the health sys­tem. It was only 1993 when women and POC were includ­ed in clin­i­cal tri­als. Heart attacks are the num­ber-one killer of women, but women are 50% more like­ly to be giv­en a wrong diag­no­sis. Only 4% of all health­care research is focused on women’s health issues. From peri­ods and child­birth to menopause, female pain has been nor­mal­ized, as soci­ety shrugs and says ​“Wel­come to being a woman” instead of com­ing up with bet­ter solu­tions. In The Vagi­na Busi­ness, award-win­ning jour­nal­ist Mari­na Gern­er Ph.D. takes an eye-open­ing — and often times shock­ing — look at the inequities when it comes to sci­en­tif­ic research and the […]

Before evolv­ing into a writer, Car­ol Good­man Kauf­man worked as an indus­tri­al and orga­ni­za­tion­al psy­chol­o­gist and crim­i­nol­o­gist. Her pub­lished works span mul­ti­ple gen­res, includ­ing aca­d­e­m­ic re- search, food his­to­ry, trav­el, human inter­est, children’s lit­er­a­ture, and mys­tery short sto­ries. The First Mur­der is her first novel. Title: The First Murder When Mary Jane Ben­nett is found dead in her bed — alone, stran­gled by her own scarf, and with every door in the house locked — the med­ical exam­in­er rules her death acci­den­tal, the result of a sex game gone hor­ri­bly awry. State police decline to inves­ti­gate fur­ther, but Queens­bridge Police Chief Caleb Crane doesn’t buy for a minute that his good friend died this way, so he under­takes his own inves­ti­ga­tion. Fac­ing town coun­cilors afraid of bad pub­lic­i­ty, an angry med­ical exam­in­er, and his own per­son­al demons, he labors to solve what he believes is the first-ever mur­der in his pas­toral Berk­shire Hills vil­lage. Com­pli­cat­ing things: the list of sus­pects includes some of the peo­ple to whom he is clos­est — includ­ing his own wife. Run­ning through­out the book is the sto­ry of Purim and its mes­sages. Who is the killer hid­ing behind a mask? CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Dr. Nora Gold is the prize-win­ning author of five books and the founder and edi­tor of the pres­ti­gious lit­er­ary jour­nal Jew­ish Fic​tion​.net. Her books have won both The Cana­di­an Jew­ish Lit­er­ary Award and The Vine Cana­di­an Jew­ish Book Award, and her writ­ing has been praised by Alice Munro, Cyn­thia Ozick, and Dara Horn. Title: In Sick­ness and in Health / Yom Kip­pur in a Gym This new book by award-win­ning writer Nora Gold is com­posed of two novel­las: In Sick­ness and in Health and Yom Kip­pur in a Gym. In Sick­ness and in Health is an intro­spec­tive nar­ra­tive writ­ten in the sec­ond per­son. It fol­lows five days in the life of a woman named Lily, who suf­fers from an undi­ag­nosed ail­ment that leaves her bedrid­den for near­ly a week every month. When­ev­er Lily has a series of awful sick days and can’t get out of bed, her mind goes down a rab­bit hole: she assumes that her hus­band is hav­ing an affair. To express this anger, Lily learns how to say ridicu­lous curs­es and angry phras­es in oth­er lan­guages. She regur­gi­tates them in a list, momen­tar­i­ly light­en­ing the seri­ous­ness of her con­di­tion.. Because Lily’s ill­ness comes and goes reg­u­lar­ly, she describes feel­ing like two dif­fer­ent peo­ple who can­not coex­ist. Gold writes clear­ly about […]

Dr. Nora Gold is the prize-win­ning author of five books and the founder and edi­tor of the pres­ti­gious lit­er­ary jour­nal Jew­ish Fic​tion​.net. Her books have won both The Cana­di­an Jew­ish Lit­er­ary Award and The Vine Cana­di­an Jew­ish Book Award, and her writ­ing has been praised by Alice Munro, Cyn­thia Ozick, and Dara Horn. Title: Jew­ish Sto­ries Trans­lat­ed from 18 Languages  Read­ers who are tempt­ed by slim vol­umes of short sto­ries will take great plea­sure in 18: Jew­ish Sto­ries Trans­lat­ed from 18 Lan­guages. Edit­ed by Nora Gold, the book deliv­ers on its promise to share beau­ti­ful­ly craft­ed fic­tion that trans­ports read­ers across the globe in fif­teen min­utes or few­er. Instead of try­ing to answer the age-old ques­tion, ​“What makes a Jew­ish sto­ry a Jew­ish sto­ry?,” the col­lec­tion allows the diverse sto­ries and voic­es of the authors to take cen­ter stage. Cer­tain­ly Jew­ish hol­i­days, com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers and insti­tu­tions, impor­tant his­tor­i­cal events, and anti­semitism appear as threads through­out the book, but they serve more as an orga­niz­ing and the­mat­ic tool than as a state­ment about the Jew­ish canon. These short sto­ries don’t pro­vide escape from cur­rent events. If any­thing, the inten­si­ty of our moment only height­ens the com­plex­i­ty and nuances of these works. The result is that although these sto­ries can be read in just […]

Ari Gold is a film­mak­er and win­ner of the Stu­dent Oscar. His films have been select­ed at Sun­dance four times, and his upcom­ing movies Heli­copter and Broth­er Vers­es Broth­er are com­pan­ions to this book. Title: Father Vers­es Sons: A Cor­re­spon­dence in Poem Description: A lush­ly illus­trat­ed ​“cor­re­spon­dence in poems,” ranges across the life, fam­i­ly, and death of a remark­able father. The father and his sons write ten­der­ly of their hunger for con­nec­tion, about the woman that all three men have lost (a moth­er, a wife), and about the pas­sion that all three seek. Ulti­mate­ly, these poems tell a sin­gu­lar sto­ry of men bum­bling their way towards love.

Rusty Ros­man is a for­mer teacher and com­mer­cial real estate bro­ker. Rusty has served as pres­i­dent and fundrais­er for sev­er­al non­prof­it com­mu­ni­ty orga­ni­za­tions. In her com­mu­ni­ty where she has lived her entire life, Rusty is a mem­ber of the Zon­ing Board of Appeals and the Prop­er­ty Tax Board. Rusty and her hus­band Stephen are the very proud par­ents of two adult chil­dren and grand­par­ents to six grandchildren. Title: Two Envelopes: What You Want Your Loved Ones To Know When You Die Description: When you die, there are so many things your fam­i­ly and loved ones imme­di­ate­ly need to know. Two Envelopes is your voice, con­vey­ing your wish­es regard­ing your death and your estate. With a unique blend of wis­dom, humor, and empa­thet­ic sto­ry­telling, Rusty Ros­man delves into the often-avoid­ed top­ic of death, offer­ing read­ers a guide to nav­i­gate the com­plex­i­ties of both prac­ti­cal and emo­tion­al aspects of end-of-life plan­ning. Rusty’s wis­dom and heart­felt way of guid­ing her read­ers make this book unique among the oth­er end-of-life plan­ning work­books avail­able online. We all know this to be true: • We all die. • We all mourn the pass­ing of loved ones. • We all must deal with the details relat­ed to our loved one’s death. Your […]

Elisa Box­er is an Emmy-win­ning jour­nal­ist and Syd­ney Tay­lor Hon­or-win­ning author who has writ­ten numer­ous non­fic­tion books for chil­dren. She has a pas­sion for telling sto­ries about unsung heroes who have found the courage to defy social norms and cre­ate change, espe­cial­ly dur­ing dark times in his­to­ry. Her books include The Voice that Won the Vote, Cov­ered in Col­or (called ​“com­pelling from cov­er to cov­er” in a Kirkus starred review) and Hid­den Hope, which earned three starred reviews and the Syd­ney Tay­lor sil­ver medal. Elisa lives in Maine and has many more books on the way. Title: The Tree of Life: How a Holo­caust Sapling Inspired the World Descriptions: This del­i­cate­ly told, beau­ti­ful­ly illus­trat­ed true sto­ry is rec­om­mend­ed by the pub­lish­er for ages five to nine — but, in real­i­ty, it’s suit­able and use­ful for chil­dren of all ages. It cen­ters on a spe­cial maple tree whose descen­dants are plant­ed in many loca­tions, includ­ing the Muse­um of Jew­ish Her­itage in New York City. Dur­ing the Holo­caust, a group of inmates, some of them chil­dren, smug­gled a small sapling into their con­cen­tra­tion camp and cared for it. It was so impor­tant to them that they shared their mea­ger water rations with it. Watch­ing it grow and thrive remind­ed them that, despite their harsh sur­round­ings, a future was pos­si­ble. […]