Jacki Lyden

Last updated
Jacki Lyden
Born1953
Wisconsin
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Journalist, author
EmployerNPR
Known forDaughter of the Queen of Sheba
SpouseBill O'Leary

Jacki Lyden (born 1953or1954 [1] ) is an American journalist and author of the memoir, Daughter of the Queen of Sheba (1999).

Contents

Early life and education

Lyden grew up in Delafield and Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, [2] the eldest of three daughters. She graduated from Valparaiso University and has studied at the University of Cambridge and was a Benton Fellow in 1991–92 at University of Chicago. [3] She has an honorary Ph.D. from Valparaiso and has taught various university workshops.

NPR career

In 1979, Lyden joined National Public Radio as a freelance reporter in the Chicago bureau. [4] By 1989, Lyden was stationed in London, covering The Troubles in Northern Ireland. [3] She covered the Gulf War from the Middle East. [3] Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, she continued to serve as a foreign correspondent for NPR. [3] Lyden, then living in Brooklyn, was NPR's first correspondent on the air from New York during the September 11 attacks and reported from "Ground Zero". [3] In late 2001, she served as a foreign correspondent in Afghanistan. As a regular substitute host for Weekend All Things Considered and other shows, like Weekend Edition, she interviewed numerous poets, authors, filmmakers. She and the late John McChesney produced "Anatomy of a Shooting" in 2006, about the accidental killing of her Iraqi translator, Yasser Salihee, by an American soldier.

During a 2008 downsizing, Lyden's staff position as an All Things Considered substitute host was eliminated. [4] She continued as a contributing host and correspondent on a temporary basis from 2009 through 2014, when her contract ended. [4]

After 2014, when she left NPR, she hosted an NPR series and podcast on fashion as anthropology and history and fair trade called The Seams. [4] Lyden explained that The Seams aims to "give voice and legitimacy and intellectual inquiry" to getting dressed. The Seams motto was "clothing is our common thread, in every stitch, a story."

Her reporting has earned her wide acclaim, including two Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award awards, a Peabody Award, and a Gracie Award. [3]

Public speaking and writing

She does public speaking and is represented by The Tuesday Agency. In 2019 she appeared at the 92 Y, Politics and Prose, the Center for Fiction, and the Skyland Trail. Together with poet and memoirist Nick Flynn she was the keynote speaker for Hippocamp 2019, a conference for nonfiction writers held annually through Hippocampus Magazine. She is a member of the Authors Guild.

In 2017, she established the "Love Comes in at the Eye" writing workshop in Connemara, Ireland, and she is a board member. Ten established writers are selected to come to Renvyle House Hotel. [5] Lyden established workshops for women writers in the US, and together with her former colleague author Eric Weiner established the Colton House Writers Workshop in Flagstaff, Arizona. The workshop was held online in February 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic restrictions. [6] [7]

In 1997, Lyden published a memoir, Daughter of the Queen of Sheba, [8] about growing up with a mentally ill mother. Caroline Knapp writing in The New York Times described the book: "The writing -- vivid, original, lyrical -- shines at its most haunting, when Lyden homes in on the specifics of her mother's behavior". [9] [10] Michiko Kakutani wrote a review in 1997, saying this memoir was "a book that belongs on the shelf of classic memoirs, alongside The Liars' Club by Mary Karr and Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt." Kakutani called her writing "deft, luminous prose" and described the book as "both a reporter's unsentimental act of recollection and a love letter to an impossible and captivating woman." [11]

Lyden is working on a second memoir, called Tell Me Something Good, which describes her transformation from NPR journalist to a writer.

Personal life

Lyden is married to Bill O'Leary, a senior photographer for the Washington Post. [3] She divides her time between the Washington DC area (Silver Spring, MD), Brooklyn, New York, and Delafield, Wisconsin. [4] [9] [3] [10] [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lizz Winstead</span> American comedian

Lizz Winstead is an American comedian, radio and television personality, abortion rights activist, and podcast host. A native of Minnesota, Winstead is the co-creator of The Daily Show along with Madeleine Smithberg, and served as head writer and one of the original correspondents. Winstead is the founder and chief creative officer of Abortion Access Front, a nonprofit made up of “activists, writers and producers and comedians that uses humor to destigmatize abortion” and fight against anti-abortion forces nationwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maria Hinojosa</span> Mexican-American journalist

Maria de Lourdes Hinojosa Ojeda is a Mexican-American journalist. She is the anchor and executive producer of Latino USA on National Public Radio, a public radio show devoted to Latino issues. She is also the founder, president and CEO of Futuro Media Group, which produces the show. In 2022, Hinojosa won a Pulitzer Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michiko Kakutani</span> American critic, writer (b. 1955)

Michiko Kakutani is an American writer and retired literary critic, best known for reviewing books for The New York Times from 1983 to 2017. In that role, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1998.

<i>Teacher Man</i> 2005 book by Frank McCourt

Teacher Man is a 2005 memoir written by Frank McCourt which describes and reflects on his development as a teacher in New York high schools and colleges. It is in continuation to his earlier two memoirs, Angela's Ashes and 'Tis.

Kathryn Harrison is an American author. She has published seven novels, two memoirs, two collections of personal essays, a travelogue, two biographies, and a book of true crime. She reviews regularly for The New York Times Book Review. Her personal essays have been included in many anthologies and have appeared in Bookforum, Harper's Magazine, More Magazine, The New Yorker, O, The Oprah Magazine, and Vogue, Salon, and Nerve.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Davar Ardalan</span> American journalist

Iran Davar Ardalan is a tech entrepreneur, journalist, and author based in Washington, D.C. Known as Davar Ardalan, she is the founder of TulipAI, former Executive Producer of Audio at National Geographic, and has served as co-chair of the Cultural Heritage and AI track at ITU's AI for Good. Prior to this, she was deputy director of the White House Presidential Innovation Fellowship Program in Washington, D.C. She was also a long-time journalist at NPR News, where she helped shape the news shows Weekend Edition and Morning Edition, and was responsible for decisions that required elaborate coordination such as live broadcasts from Baghdad, Kabul, and New Orleans. Ardalan is an advocate for cross-platform storytelling. At NPR, her real-time storytelling campaigns cultivated thought leaders across platforms and reached millions on Twitter and Facebook.

Linda Gray Sexton is an American writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cheryl Strayed</span> American writer (born 1968)

Cheryl Strayed is an American writer and podcast host. She has written four books: the novel Torch (2006) and the nonfiction books Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (2012), Tiny Beautiful Things (2012) and Brave Enough (2015). Wild, the story of Strayed's 1995 hike up the Pacific Crest Trail, is an international bestseller and was adapted into the 2014 Academy Award-nominated film Wild.

Margaret Seltzer is an American writer.

<i>Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member</i> 1993 memoir by Sanyika Shakur

Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member is a memoir about gang life written in prison by Sanyika Shakur.

Nora Okja Keller is a Korean American author. Her 1997 breakthrough work of fiction, Comfort Woman, and her second book (2002), Fox Girl, focus on multigenerational trauma resulting from Korean women's experiences as sex slaves, euphemistically called comfort women, for Japanese and American troops during World War II and the ongoing Korean War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gabrielle Hamilton (chef)</span> American chef and author

Gabrielle Hamilton is an American chef and author. She is the chef and owner of Prune, a restaurant in New York City, and the author of Blood, Bones, and Butter, a memoir.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Parul Sehgal</span> American literary critic

Parul Sehgal is an American literary critic. She was senior editor and columnist at The New York Times Book Review, and in 2017 became one of its team of book critics. As of December 2021, she is a staff writer at The New Yorker. She also teaches in the graduate creative writing program at New York University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dana Spiotta</span> American novelist (born 1966)

Dana Spiotta is an American author. She was a recipient of the Rome Prize in Literature, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kelly McEvers</span> American journalist

Kelly McEvers is an American journalist. McEvers is host of NPR's "Embedded" podcast. She was a co-host of NPR's flagship newsmagazine All Things Considered until February 2018. Before this she was a foreign correspondent for NPR, in which she covered momentous international events including the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, Middle East uprisings associated with the Arab Spring, and the Syrian civil war.

<i>My Beloved World</i>

My Beloved World is a memoir written by Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic justice on the United States Supreme Court, about her childhood, education, and life through 1992.

<i>M Train</i> (book)

M Train is a 2015 memoir written by Patti Smith. Smith's audiobook recording of M Train earned a Grammy Award nomination for Best Spoken Word Album.

Omar El Akkad is an Egyptian-Canadian novelist and journalist, whose novel What Strange Paradise was the winner of the 2021 Giller Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ashley C. Ford</span> American writer

Ashley C. Ford is an American writer, podcaster and educator who discusses topics including race, sexuality, and body image. She is the author of the New York Times best-selling memoir, Somebody's Daughter. She has been the host of five podcasts and has written or guest-edited for publications including The Guardian, Elle, BuzzFeed, and New York. In 2017, Forbes named her one of their "30 Under 30 in Media". In 2022, Ford won the Indiana Authors Award for a debut novel.

Mira Bartók is an American author. Her memoir The Memory Palace received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Memoir/Autobiography and her novel The Wonderling is being adapted into a film.

References

  1. 1 2 Fibich, Linda (December 1997). "A Writer with Nothing to Fear". American Journalism Review . Archived from the original on August 4, 2016. Retrieved June 9, 2016.
  2. ↑ Lyden 1997, p. 1.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Jacki Lyden, NPR Biography". NPR. Archived from the original on May 3, 2009. Retrieved June 9, 2016.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Kalish, Jon (October 30, 2014). "After NPR, Jacki Lyden plans podcast that takes fashion seriously". Current. Retrieved March 17, 2021.
  5. ↑ "Love Comes In at the Eye Writers Workshop" . Retrieved March 27, 2021.
  6. ↑ "Colton House Writers Seminar" . Retrieved March 27, 2021.
  7. ↑ "Eric Weiner Writing Workshops" . Retrieved March 27, 2021.
  8. ↑ Lyden, Jacki (1997). Daughter of the Queen of Sheba . Houghton Mifflin. ISBN   0-395-76531-5.
  9. 1 2 Knapp, Caroline (October 26, 1997). "A Fine Madness". Books. The New York Times . Retrieved March 27, 2021.
  10. 1 2 Pate, Nancy (October 11, 1998). "On Paper". Books. Star-News . Knight Ridder. p. 6D. Retrieved August 19, 2016– via Google News Archive.
  11. ↑ Kakutani, Michiko (October 3, 1997). "BOOKS OF THE TIMES; A Daughter's Memories Of a Mentally Ill Mother". The New York Times. Retrieved March 27, 2021.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.