Burnt Toast: A Memoir of My Immigrant Grandmother

Coming from Apprentice House Press, May 2023

Available for purchase here.

"A heartbreaking remembrance written in powerful, poetic language."

   -- Kirkus Reviews

Click here to read the review

“What happens to a woman who loses her name? This is one of the many questions Nancy Gerber asks about her maternal grandmother, the focus of her new, compassionate and moving, memoir, Burnt Toast. It is an account of the profound and irreparable loss experienced by immigrants as they leave their home, parents, mother tongue—and even name—behind. With honesty, beauty, and humanity, Gerber details the strong bond forged between grandmother and granddaughter, who quietly connect through food, embroidery, their independent spirits, and an unspoken belief in each other. Ultimately, the book memorializes not only a portrait of Gerber’s grandmother, but also many facets of the Jewish immigrant experience.”

 -- Ellen Sherman, Into the Attic

The Kingdom of Childhood

A New Chapbook from New Feral Press

Click here to read an excerpt

Copies are available for $12. which includes shipping.  To place an order, please send a check payable to Joan Digby and mail to:

New Feral Press at 30 Kellogg Street, Oyster Bay, NY 11771.

What the Living Remember

Forthcoming from Apprentice House Press, October 2020

“In What the Living Remember, Nancy Gerber gives us a coming-of-age story of a German Jewish boy who turns thirteen in 1933, the year Adolf Hitler assumes full control of the German government.  Karl Walter faces typical adolescent “crises”:  first puppy love; trying to figure out who he is; loneliness; defining his masculinity. But all these are textured by the increasing aggression against Jews (boycotts of Jewish businesses; assaults by Hitler Youth; the Nuremberg Laws) and the ambivalence of highly assimilated, middle class German Jews which prevents many from recognizing what is unfolding before their very eyes.  This is an important story that brings the reader into the psychological world of these Jews as they grapple with the “social death” they experience in the pre-war years. It is also a form of Kaddish for the many who found themselves ensnared in the Nazi death trap, unable to escape, and who ultimately perished.”

—Ann L. Saltzman, Director Emerita, Center for Holocaust/Genocide Study at Drew University

“What the Living Remember is the story of Karl Walter Zimmer, a Jewish teenage boy in Berlin who comes of age as Hitler ascends to power. This vivid and poignant novella starts when Karl is 13 and recounts the next harrowing few years as conditions for Jews worsen and eventually become impossible…” Click here to read the entire review

— Ellen Sherman, Author, Just the Facts

Available for purchase here

Interview with Apprentice House Press

Book Review from Mom Egg Review

Awards

Notable Book, 2020 Shelf Unbound Best Indie Book Competition

Bronze Award, 2020-2021 Reader Views Reviewers Choice

The Dancing Clock:  Reflections on Family, Love, and Loss

Shanti Arts Publishing, 2019

A collection of autobiographical prose vignettes illuminating some of life's ordinary (and extraordinary) moments.

"Once upon a time the clock did not dance.  Time behaved in orderly fashion -- measured, polite days followed one another in a predictable cycle of possibility.  When did time begin its manic waltz?  When I became aware of mortality?  I finally understand:  there's an endpoint and I am approaching it.  It's useless to flee, so I take time by the hand.  Together we make marks on the dazzling white page."

Read the Mom Egg review!

Official Press Release

Available at Amazon and Shanti Arts

Awards

2nd Place Winner in the Relationships Category of the 2019 Royal Dragonfly Book Awards