Julie Fingersh, a native of Greater Kansas City and acclaimed author and journalist, will return to Kansas City later this month to discuss her new book, “Stay: A Story of Family, Love, & Other Traumas.”
Fingersh will discuss “Stay” twice — first on Tuesday, May 20, from 5 to 7 p.m. at Pembroke Hill School (5121 State Line Rd., Kansas City, MO 64112), and then on Thursday, May 22, at 7 p.m. at Rainy Day Books (2706 W. 53rd St., Fairway, KS 66205). RSVPs for the Pembroke Hill event can be directed to , and advanced tickets for the Rainy Day Books event are required and available at rainydaybooks.com/event/2025-05-22/julie-fingersh-stay.
“Stay” centers around the complexity of relationships, parenting and midlife, while also showing readers what’s behind the veil of those navigating medical or mental struggles. Fingersh explores her past and present, ranging from as a young child in Kansas City to now as a parent, while covering the hidden cost of family secrets, intergenerational ripples from a family member’s illness, the weight of one’s past and more.
“ ‘Stay’ is, in so many ways, a love letter,” Fingersh said. “To my parents and brothers, from a daughter and sister. To the family I built, as a mother and a wife. And to the community that shaped us. It means the world to know it’s being read and embraced here [in Kansas City], where our family story began.”
Fingersh, daughter of community members Pella and Jack Fingersh, is a former Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy student. Having grown up here, large parts of Fingersh’s book are set within the Kansas City Jewish community.
“It’s impossible to tell my family's story without including the Kansas City Jewish community,” Fingersh said. “My brothers and I were raised in a home filled with love, and our Jewish community was always an extension of that family embrace. I’ve lived on the East and West Coast for most of my adult life, but KC still feels most like home, and that’s absolutely because of the Jewish community.”
Dan Fingersh, Julie Fingersh’s late brother and namesake of Jewish Federation’s Dan Fingersh Young Leadership Award, and his story are “central to the book,” the author said.
“[For Danny], being Jewish and part of this community was both a beacon and an anchor,” she said. “He loved going to Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy. He loved his friends and teachers there. He loved being a counselor at Barney Goodman’s camp and being part of BBYO. Even during his darkest hours, he would talk about those days as the essence of joyfulness, comfort, safety and fun. He felt a deep sense of belonging in the Kansas City Jewish community.”
Fingersh’s book garnered praise from New York Times bestselling authors including Anne Lamott, Gretchen Rubin, Kelly Corrigan and Dr. Edith Eva Eger. It also received support from her family, which she found meaningful.
“To me, my family's absolutely unconditional support of my writing this book is an incredible act of love,” she said. “‘Stay’ tells the truth. It’s an intimate look at the inner life of a family, with all its layers of love and pain, and mine is a family for whom privacy has always mattered deeply. But I think they saw how much I was struggling, and they understood that writing this book was my way through. And so they said, ‘Do it. Write the story you need to write.’ Just thinking about the love that it took for them to say that and stand by it as the book has gained more public and media exposure — it makes me teary. And now that the book is out in the world, I think (and hope) they’re feeling a sense of healing and maybe even some closure, too.”
People Magazine named “Stay” one of its best memoirs of 2024, ranking in October between President Bill Clinton’s and Cher’s memoirs.
“I’ll never forget standing in the airport, picking up People, and seeing ‘Stay' sandwiched between Clinton and Cher. My first thought was, Cher and Bill are definitely opening that page and saying, ‘Who in God’s name is Julie Fingersh?’” she said. She credits both her publicist and her story being “deeply relatable in its universal truth and impact on readers.”
Fingersh now lives in California and has two adult children. Her writings have been featured in The New York Times, Oprah Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, Huffington Post, Miami Herald, Kansas City Star, Businessweek, Grown and Flown and more.
More information about Fingersh and “Stay” is available at juliefingersh.com/stay.