Rachel Kadish

Born in New York City on August 12, 1969, Kadish grew up in Westchester County, New York, where she attended middle school at Solomon Schechter School of Westchester in Hartsdale, and New Rochelle High School in New Rochelle. Kadish received an A.B. from Princeton University in 1991 and an M.A. from New York University in 1994.

Her novel Tolstoy Lied: a Love Story won the John Gardner Fiction Prize in 2007.{{cite web|url=https://www.binghamton.edu/english/creative-writing/binghamton-center-for-writers/gardner-past-award-winners.html|title=John Gardner Book Award winner, 2007|website=Binghamton University}} Her novel, The Weight of Ink, won the National Jewish Book Award in 2017,{{cite web |last=Bernstein |first=Jesse |date=January 10, 2018 |title=Announcing the Winners of the National Jewish Book Awards |url=https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/announcing-the-winners-of-the-2017-national-jewish-book-award-winners |website=Tablet}} the Julia Ward Howe Prize in 2018,{{cite web |title=Julia Ward Howe Prize Winners 1997 to 2022 |url=https://bostonauthorsclub.org/jwh-award-table |access-date=July 28, 2024 |publisher=Boston Authors Club}} and the Association of Jewish Libraries Fiction Award in 2018.{{Cite web |title=Jewish Fiction Award |url=https://jewishlibraries.org/jewish-fiction-award/ |access-date=July 28, 2024 |website=Association of Jewish Libraries}}

She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts and the Massachusetts Cultural Council.{{cite web |website=Lesley University Faculty Directory |url=https://lesley.edu/about/faculty-staff-directory/rachel-kadish|title=Rachel Kadish Bio}}

She is involved in New Voices,{{cite web |title=VOICES BETWEEN - THE CREATIVE CONVERSATIONS |url=https://www.storiesforsociety.com/the-creative-conversations.html |website=Stories for Society}} a project using the arts to work for tolerance.

Rachel Kadish's 2017 novel, The Weight of Ink, winner of the National Jewish Book Award, is a work of historical fiction set in London in the 1660s and in the early twenty-first century. It tells the interwoven stories of two women: Ester Velasquez, an immigrant from Amsterdam who is permitted to scribe for a blind rabbi just before the plague hits London; and Helen Watt, an ailing historian with a love of Jewish history.

Her short stories and essays have been read on US National Public Radio{{cite news|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16783453|title=Hanukkah Lights 2007: Stories Of The Season|date=December 1, 2007|agency=National Public Radio}} and have appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Paris Review,{{cite news|url=https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/04/26/writing-the-lives-of-forgotten-women/|title=Writing the Lives of Forgotten Women|date=April 26, 2018|agency=The Paris Review}} Salon, and The Pushcart Prize Anthology.

Kadish has also written in Quartz magazine about Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat who saved her family during World War II{{cite web|url=https://qz.com/999151/a-japanese-stranger-saved-my-family-from-the-holocaust-how-can-i-repay-him/|title=A Japanese stranger saved my family from the Holocaust. How can I repay him?|website=Quartz}} and in The Paris Review on the importance of historical fiction in illuminating forgotten history.{{cite web|url=https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2018/04/26/writing-the-lives-of-forgotten-women/|title=Writing the Lives of Forgotten Women|website=The Paris Review}}

She is a graduate of Princeton University and New York University.

{{Expand list|date=November 2018}}

• From a Sealed Room (2006). Boston: Houghton Mifflin {{ISBN|978-0618562411}}
• Tolstoy Lied: a Love Story (2007). Boston: Mariner Books {{ISBN|978-0618919833}}
• The Weight of Ink (2017). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt {{ISBN|978-0544866461}}

• I Was Here (2014 ebook)

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• {{Official website|http://rachelkadish.com/}}

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Category:21st-century American women writers

Category:21st-century American short story writers

Category:American women novelists

Category:American women short story writers

Category:Jewish American novelists

Category:Lesley University faculty

Category:New York University alumni

Category:Princeton University alumni

Category:Living people

Category:1969 births

Category:American women academics

Category:21st-century American novelists