'Leaving Long Island' is the story of a woman whose life experience includes the loss of a child, the explosive end of a long marriage, and the discovery of a genetic inheritance endemic to the Ashkenazi Jewish population. This second-half-of-life memoir is a compelling narrative of both pain and happy second chances. Fern Kupfer's work has appeared in Newsweek, Redbook, Family Circle, Woman's Day, The Women's Review of Books, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Parents and Cosmopolitan magazines. She recently retired from Iowa State University where she taught creative writing. For more than a decade, her popular column "Mothering " and "A Certain Age" appeared regularly in the Long Island newspaper, Newsday. She was the recipient for the Myrtle Wreath Award by the Nassau County Hadassah, the largest women's philanthropy in the nation.