The Tampa JCCs and Federation will celebrate its 2026 Jewish Book Festival with leading national and local Jewish authors. The festival opens with several events on Sunday, Oct. 25, continues with two weeknight programs on Tuesday, Oct. 27 and Thursday, Oct. 29, a festival luncheon on Friday, Oct. 30, and concludes with another series of events taking place on Sunday, Nov. 1.
Events will be held at the Shanna & Bryan Glazer JCC, 522 N. Howard Avenue in West Tampa, or the Tampa JCCs and Federation – Carrollwood location (on the grounds of Congregation Kol Ami), 3919 Moran Road. Each event will feature the author in person and will conclude with book sales and signing by the author. The events are open to the entire Tampa Bay community. Tickets can be purchased and more information found online at jewishtampa.com/JBF.
The festival kicks off on Sunday, Oct. 25 with three events taking place at the Shanna and Bryan Glazer JCC. The opening program will take place at 11 a.m. featuring author Leslie Lacin, entertainment by the Florida Wind Band and a champagne brunch. Lacin’s historical and debut novel, “You, With Your Waiting,” gives voice to a young Jewish violin prodigy and her little brother and parents, who are caught in the 1941 Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. The children find themselves separated from their parents and each other, forced to survive on luck and wit and unfathomable courage. Tickets are $36.
At 2 p.m., celebrated California florist and author Jenny Barker will offer inspiration for the power of blooms. Guests will be guided to make a take-home bouquet, while sipping coffee or tea and enjoying tasty treats. Barker has gained fame during the last 30 years she has been in business, as a sought-after floral designer for private clients, hotels, films and TV shows. She has a unique and spiritual connection to the blossoms she arranges at her flower shop, so much so that she has become known as the Flower Doctor for her instinctive ability to prescribe the perfect flowers. Whether it’s to help with grief, healing or sleep or believing in yourself, every flower possesses its own energy to help in a meaningful way. She provided the exquisite photography and told her story in her beautiful coffee table book, “Flower Energy – Channeling the Healing Power of Blooms.” Tickets for the refreshments and bouquet are $18.
Author Jodi Michelle Cutler will close Sunday’s programming at 4 p.m. with prosecco, Tuscan treats and an afternoon offering a story of navigating twists of midlife and romance. Cutler says her romance novel, “Sofa Bed Island,” evokes a place many people have visited – or wish they had. You might send someone there after a breakup or find yourself checked in for a short visit or an extended stay. Located somewhere between Miami and Rome, and your living room sofa, with seats beside a charming, gorgeous cowboy, it is a place to reflect on relationships that ended in heartbreak and on the life rebuilt with fearless girlfriends and good wine. It’s a story about loss and reinvention and learning to cherish a love for yourself. The cost is $18.
“The Boy with the Backward Heart” will be the featured book on Tuesday, Oct. 27, 7 p.m., at the Tampa JCCs and Federation – Carrollwood location. Author Pamela Sampson will describe how, as an editor and former foreign correspondent for the Associated Press, she chased stories around the world, until life hands her one that stopped her in her tracks. Sampson adopted a baby boy in Guatemala and had resumed her career as a single mother. Then comes shattering news that her baby has a rare heart defect, so complex that only a few surgeons in the world might be able to fix it. Sampson’s book is a memoir of adoption, medical crisis and the quiet moral reckonings at the center of a Jewish woman’s effort to build a family on her own. This event is free to attend.
On Thursday, Oct. 29, at 7 p.m. at the Tampa JCCs and Federation – Carrollwood location, author Roslyn Franken presents the remarkable true story of her parents, a Holocaust survivor and a survivor of the Nagasaki atomic bomb. Their lives came together in an extraordinary story: “Meant to Be: A True Story of Might, Miracles and the Triumph of the Human Spirit.” She is also the creator of “From Surviving to Thriving,” an online program for women cancer survivors, and she coaches aspiring authors in turning their life stories into meaningful books. This event is free to attend.
The festival luncheon on Friday, Oct. 30, at 11:30 a.m. at the Shanna and Bryan Glazer JCC, will feature celebrity media mogul, author Zibby Owens. Owens has written six books, including two bestsellers, and is the award-winning host of the “Totally Booked” podcast and a weekly TV show on JBS. She owns an independent bookstore in Santa Monica, CA, and a publishing house named Zibby Publishing. Owens runs Retreats, an online book club, and writes regular online newsletters and a blog. She will be discussing her latest book, “Between Chapters – How I Started Over, Took Some Chances, and Found the Plot.” The memoir is written as a collection of essays written during a period of Owen’s life of extreme change, when she went from being a stay-at-home Orthodox mom of 4 children, to being recognized on the street as a celebrity. She says it was a time when she gained and lost weight and friends and weathered natural disasters and much more. The luncheon is a four-course meal. Tickets to attend are $54, and guests receive a signed copy of Owen’s book. The deadline for purchasing tickets for this event is Oct. 25.
On Sunday, Nov. 1, author Amanda Klinghoff, and her creative guide celebrating Jewish holidays and traditions through 50 accessible crafts and activities, will begin at 9:30 a.m. at Congregation Kol Ami, 3919 Moran Road. Her book, “The Art of Jewish Joy,” is organized by seasonal core values rather than by chronological dates and offers a creative, contemporary way to build meaning and connection with family. Her mission is to empower kids to create the world they want to live in through crafts that are meant to be kept and proudly displayed. The $10 ticket includes a continental breakfast, a demo and a craft project. Youth under age 12 are free. This event is in partnership with Congregation Kol Ami.
The next event will take place at the Shanna and Bryan Glazer JCC at 2 p.m. with author Carol Becker. Her book, “William Greenberg Desserts Bakes Vegan,” reveals how an iconic 80-year-old New York City kosher bakery discovered that traditional Jewish baking has been quietly plant-based all along. When customers began requesting parve desserts for kosher observance, Becker realized these recipes naturally aligned with contemporary vegan principles – no dairy, no eggs, yet completely indulgent. Becker has grown the bakery into a nationwide mail house while maintaining its two New York City locations and its traditional character. This beautifully photographed cookbook offers 50 recipes and tells the story of how parve baking is keeping pace with the times in an accessible, delicious way. Tickets are $12 for a tea and tasting Party.
The festival concludes later that day at 4 p.m. at the Shanna and Bryan Glazer JCC. Author Michael Kimmel’s book, “Playmakers – The Jewish Entrepreneurs Who Created the Toy Industry in America,” reveals how the toy industry (which includes Hasbro, Lionel trains, Mattel, teddy bears, candy stores, comic books, Barbie, Mr. Potato Head, etc.), through its Jewish inventors created the idealized American childhood. Their toys offered an enchanted world, full of wild creatures and eternal struggles between good and evil, with endless realms of fantasy and beauty. For much of the 20th century, every part of the American toy business was largely Jewish – the company founders, executives and designers, as well as factory workers, distributors, retail outlets and armies of salesmen. Kimmel tells how poor, Yiddish-speaking, tenement-dwelling children of immigrants invented a world they never experienced for themselves. Kimmel is a SUNY Distinguished Professor at Stony Brook University and author of numerous books. Tickets are $28 and include a deli dinner and lots of playful talk and activities.
After the conclusion of the in-person author events, the JCC’s Zoom-In Book Club begins. It runs Jan. through May 2027, offering monthly Zoom interviews, most of which occur on Sunday nights, and features leading authors talking about their latest books. A schedule of dates will be released during this year’s Book Festival.
Brandy Gold, the Tampa JCCs & Federation’s arts and culture director noted, “We offer special compelling book-related programming for our community, to celebrate Jewish literature and to connect and come together through stories. Our visiting authors over the past 20+ years tell us that our festivals rival any in the country. We hope you’ll join us and bring your friends. We know you won’t be disappointed.”
The Jewish Book Festival is generously sponsored by the Gemunder Family Foundation and supported by the Manners Family, Hillsborough County and the national Jewish Book Council along with the Oxford Exchange, the festival’s designated bookseller.
For more information about the 2026 Jewish Book Festival or the Zoom-In Book Club, please contact Brandy Gold at (813) 769-4725, brandy.gold@jewishtampa.com.