Planning for the 2021–2022 Greater Naples Jewish Book Festival is underway

A message from your Jewish Book Festival Chair

Robin Mintz and Susan Pittelman, along with their dedicated committee, planned and executed the tremendously successful Greater Naples 2020-2021 Jewish Book eFestival. With 25 sponsors, 311 patrons, and you — the Greater Naples community — everyone demonstrated strong support and commitment, working hard to make the Jewish Book Festival (JBF) a virtual delight!

Now, it’s time to look ahead. Gayle Dorio is the new volunteer chair of the 2021-2022 JBF.

Gayle Dorio with Dani Shapiro

Gayle has been a long-time member of the committee and has been an “author champion” more than a dozen times. She has co-chaired several events, put together last year’s Preview event and has volunteered in many capacities over the years.

At the event featuring Jeremy Dauber, who wrote a book about Jewish comedy, Gayle performed stand-up where she earned the nickname, “The Delightful Mrs. Dorio,” after being compared to the “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” She also dressed in a fortuneteller costume, entertaining the audience when Stephen M. Silverman discussed his book about amusement parks.

It’s fun and exciting to participate in the book festival. The authors are delightful, and getting to meet them adds to the experience and enjoyment while reading their books, even when done virtually. The sponsors are happy to have the community hear more about their

The Jewish Book Council offers a large selection of authors, who usually meet with select book festival committee members in New York at the end of May. COVID-19 changed that last year — it was done via Zoom and will be via Zoom this year also. This year, Reneé Bialek, Gayle Dorio, Jan Goldman and Carol Hirsch will listen to and evaluate approximately 250 authors as they present a two-minute summary of their book. The readers and committee members will be hard at work reading, writing reviews and providing recommendations regarding the desirability of a particular book. Selections ultimately will be based upon the review, recommendations and quality of the speaker’s presentation.

If all is positive, we will ask the Jewish Book Council if the author is available and if we may book the author for a certain date. We are hoping that some authors and events may actually be in person, but we will see. There are many advantages also to using Zoom — no traffic, no worrying about seats, no dressing up, to name a few.

As you can see, there are quite a number of steps before the book festival is underway. We will be flexible and optimistic! Stay tuned as we move forward.

Interested in reading? Interested in updates? Do you have a business or organization that would like to be a sponsor? We would love to hear from you!

Please email Reneé at rbialek@ jewishnaples.org.