My friend Judith Bruder and I met on the internet many years ago, back in the early days of blogging, when WordPress was coming of age, and Julie was cooking Julia. I had just started my blog, Random Acts of Writing, and Judith was posting at Touch 2 Touch/A View from the Woods with the E.M. Forster quote as her tagline: “Only Connect!”
We liked each other’s posts, commented now and then, remarked on shared interests in writing, food, and France. But it was her frequent photoblogs about Look Park in nearby Northampton, Massachusetts that sparked my curiosity one summer, and we agreed to meet in person. One visit begot another.
There were long conversations at her dining room table. Visits to local museums and restaurants. Cooking lessons. Celebrations. Consolations. We weathered milestones, heartbreaks, and the entirety of the pandemic.
It was during the pandemic that Judith came up with the brilliant idea to start a podcast. As she explained it:
“I knew that for me, the physical danger was less than another danger, the death of the spark which is the beating heart of the life force. That’s what had kept me young and vital until 85, my age when the world stopped. I had to find something that could keep the me that really counted, my spirit, my life force, alive.”
Her podcasts, called From My Button Box, kept her, me, and her varied listeners engaged and thriving through the roller coaster months of 2020.
In 2023, I had the privilege of helping my friend turn those podcasts into her third published book, From My Button Box: Collected Essays in a Pandemic Time. Published by Three Chairs Publishing, it’s a collection of her favorite podcasts, presented in a unique hybrid format: read the essays or listen to the original podcasts using individual QR codes throughout the book.
It’s a collection I’ve turned to often in the past week since my dear friend passed away on August 26, 2026. Reading her wise words and hearing her voice brings me as much comfort in my grief today, as it has over the past 15 years of our friendship.
Judith was a writer, a lecturer, and a scholar; a graduate of Wellesley College who had been a campus minister at Fordham University in Manhattan. At home she was a wife then widow, mother, grandmother, and proud great grandmother. She considered herself a freelance philosopher and a modern-day anchoress.
She was a wise and steadfast friend to many, and those of us who knew her were truly blessed. She will be missed and remembered.
Please watch for a series of blog reposts from Judith and my early blog connections, reposting on Random Acts of Writing in the coming week.
Three Chairs Publishing 
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