In her new book, Dani Shapiro explore how we become who we are, how Judaism shapes how we think about our iden­ti­ty, and soci­ety’s expec­ta­tions of female artists and Jew­ish women. Mod­er­at­ed by Stephanie But­nick, deputy edi­tor of Tablet Mag­a­zine and a host of ​“Unortho­dox,” its week­ly podcast.

Dani Shapiro is the author of the mem­oirs Inher­i­tance, Hour­glass, Still Writ­ing, Devo­tion, and Slow Motion, and five nov­els includ­ing Black & White and Fam­i­ly His­to­ry. She is also an essay­ist and a jour­nal­ist, and her short fic­tion, essays, and jour­nal­is­tic pieces have appeared in The New York­er, Gran­ta, Tin House, One Sto­ry, Elle, Vogue, O, The Oprah Mag­a­zine, The New York Times Book Review, the op-ed pages of the New York Times, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. She has taught in the writ­ing pro­grams at Colum­bia, NYU, the New School, and Wes­leyan Uni­ver­si­ty; she is the cofounder of the Siren­land Writ­ers Con­fer­ence in Posi­tano, Italy. She lives with her fam­i­ly in Litch­field Coun­ty, Connecticut.

Host­ed at the Jew­ish Muse­um in New York City (1109 5th Avenue), Unpack­ing the Book: Jew­ish Writ­ers in Con­ver­sa­tion brings togeth­er some of the finest writ­ers of the day for con­ver­sa­tions around con­tem­po­rary Jew­ish life and iden­ti­ty. This event is FREE with pay-what-you-want admis­sion and includes wine and refresh­ments, a book sale and sign­ing, and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to vis­it the Jew­ish Muse­um gal­leries on the day of the pro­gram; how­ev­er, space is lim­it­ed and guests must reg­is­ter in advance.