This event is can­celed in light of cur­rent events. 

Jewish Book Coun­cil and its Emerg­ing Lead­ers Coun­cil are host­ing a book swap and author con­ver­sa­tion with Ben Purk­ert (author of The Men Can’t Be Saved) at Vine­Pair. Come ready to swap a book you love with anoth­er, and join us for an engag­ing con­ver­sa­tion about Ben’s expe­ri­ence as an emerg­ing author. Drinks and light refresh­ments on us! This event will be mod­er­at­ed by our amaz­ing ELC mem­ber Court­ney Gooch. 

Click here or here to pur­chase a copy of The Men Can’t Be Saved. To read more by Ben Purk­ert, check out his recent essay ​“How Jew­ish­ness Comes and Goes” pub­lished on Jew­ish Book Coun­cil’s website. 

Ben Purk­ert’s writ­ing has appeared in The New York­er; The Nation, Poet­ry, Ploughshares, Keny­on Review, Tin House, and else­where. His poet­ry col­lec­tion, For the Love of End­ings, was named one of Adroit’s Best Poet­ry Books of the Year. He holds degrees from Har­vard and NYU, where he was a New York Times Fel­low. He teach­es cre­ative writ­ing at Rut­gers. The Men Can’t Be Saved is his debut novel.

Court­ney Gooch is a design­er and co-founder of Por­trait, a design stu­dio focused on iden­ti­ty, edi­to­r­i­al, and envi­ron­men­tal design. Pri­or to form­ing Por­trait, she held roles as Asso­ciate Part­ner at Pen­ta­gram, and as Art Direc­tor at Tar­get. She is an adjunct pro­fes­sor at the School of Visu­al Arts, and holds a BFA from Carnegie Mel­lon Uni­ver­si­ty. She lives, works, and reads in Brooklyn.