Join Am Kolel on Friday, July 24 at 6:30PM for “Mapping Loss, Grief, and a Path Forward”, a potluck dinner (dairy/vegetarian/fish) and program with Karen Paul, staff member of New Jewish Narrative and author of Cartography of Loss: A Widowhood in Essays, to be released December 1, 2026. Music with Reb David.

Karen Paul has written about caregiving, parenting, marriage, death, loss, and grief for outlets including The New York Times (Modern Love), Washington Post, Boston Globe, Lilith, Modern Loss, Open Secrets, and Grit & Gravity, the local journal featuring the work of women writers of the DMV, as well as numerous literary magazines and anthologies. Her short story “Vertigo” won the Lilith Short Fiction Contest. Karen holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from Vermont College of Fine Arts and facilitates grief-writing workshops locally and online. She lives in Takoma Park, Maryland, with Bo, the black-and-white dog who rescued her family, and her partner, Steve, who is deeply patient and mostly unfazed to be sharing the home with its ghosts.

Accommodations: None

Organization: Am Kolel

Livestream or Virtual: No, it’s not