Merrill Joan Gerber is a prize-winning novelist and short story writer. Among her novels are The Kingdom of Brooklyn, winner of the Ribalow Award from Hadassah Magazine, Anna in the Afterlife, chosen by the Los Angeles Times as a "Best Novel of 2002" and King of the World, which won the Pushcart Editors' Book Award. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Mademoiselle, The Sewanee Review, and elsewhere.