Janna Malamud Smith

Last updated

Janna Malamud Smith
BornJanna Ellen Malamud
January 1952
Corvallis, Oregon
OccupationWriter, psychotherapist, teacher
CitizenshipAmerican
EducationHarvard University (A.B.)
Smith College (M.S.W)
Genrenon-fiction, essays
Years active1997–present
SpouseDavid Smith
Children2
Relatives Bernard Malamud (father)
Website
jannamalamudsmith.com

Janna Malamud Smith (born 1952) is an American non-fiction writer. She was born in Corvallis, Oregon in 1952, the second of two children born to Ann DeChiara Malamud and the writer Bernard Malamud. She grew up in Oregon, then in Bennington, Vermont, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. She received her A.B. from Harvard University in 1973, majoring in American history and literature, and an M.S.W. in 1979 from Smith College. She practices and teaches psychotherapy in the Boston area. She is married to David Smith, and is the mother of two children. [1]

Contents

Smith has lectured widely, and has published nationally and internationally in many newspapers, magazines and journals. She is the author of five books. The first two, Private Matters: In Defense of the Personal Life (1997) and A Potent Spell: Mother Love and the Power of Fear (2003) were both chosen as “Notable Books” by The New York Times Sunday Book Review. [2] [3] Her third, My Father is a Book: A Memoir of Bernard Malamud (2006) received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, [4] was selected as a Washington Post “Best Book of the Year”, [4] and a New York Times “Editors’ Choice”. [5] Smith has had essays republished in Best American Essays in 2004 [6] and 2009. [7] She is a lecturer in psychology at Harvard Medical School, [8] and was on the editorial board of The Harvard Mental Health Letter until it ceased publication in 2012. [9] As well as teaching about psychotherapy, she teaches workshops in aspects of non-fiction writing.

Selected bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alison Bechdel</span> American cartoonist

Alison Bechdel is an American cartoonist. Originally known for the long-running comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, she came to critical and commercial success in 2006 with her graphic memoir Fun Home, which was subsequently adapted as a musical that won a Tony Award for Best Musical in 2015. In 2012, she released her second graphic memoir Are You My Mother? She was a 2014 recipient of the MacArthur "Genius" Award. She is also known for originating the Bechdel test.

<i>The Fixer</i> (novel) 1966 novel by Bernard Malamud

The Fixer is a novel by Bernard Malamud published in 1966 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. It won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

<i>Prozac Nation</i> Memoir by Elizabeth Wurtzel

Prozac Nation is a memoir by American writer Elizabeth Wurtzel published in 1994. The book describes the author's experiences with atypical depression, her own character failings and how she managed to live through particularly difficult periods while completing college and working as a writer. Prozac is a trade name for the antidepressant fluoxetine. Wurtzel originally titled the book I Hate Myself and I Want To Die but her editor convinced her otherwise. It ultimately carried the subtitle Young and Depressed in America: A Memoir.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernard Malamud</span> American writer (1914–1986)

Bernard Malamud was an American novelist and short story writer. Along with Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Norman Mailer and Philip Roth, he was one of the best known American Jewish authors of the 20th century. His baseball novel, The Natural, was adapted into a 1984 film starring Robert Redford. His 1966 novel The Fixer, about antisemitism in the Russian Empire, won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucy Grealy</span> American poet

Lucinda Margaret Grealy was an Irish-American poet and memoirist who wrote Autobiography of a Face in 1994. This critically acclaimed book describes her childhood and early adolescent experience with cancer of the jaw, which left her with some facial disfigurement. In a 1994 interview with Charlie Rose conducted right before she rose to the height of her fame, Grealy stated that she considered her book to be primarily about the issue of "identity."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Edgar Wideman</span> American writer (born 1941)

John Edgar Wideman is an American novelist, short story writer, memoirist, and essayist. He was the first person to win the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction twice. His writing is known for experimental techniques and a focus on the African-American experience.

Helen Smith Bevington was an American poet, prose writer, and educator. Her most noted book, Charley Smith's Girl (1965), was "banned by the library in the small town of Worcester, N.Y., where she grew up, because the book tells of her minister father's having been divorced by her mother for affairs that he was carrying on with younger female parishioners."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ann Patchett</span> American novelist and memoirist (born 1963)

Ann Patchett is an American author. She received the 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction in the same year, for her novel Bel Canto. Patchett's other novels include The Patron Saint of Liars (1992), Taft (1994), The Magician's Assistant (1997), Run (2007), State of Wonder (2011), Commonwealth (2016), The Dutch House (2019), and Tom Lake (2023). The Dutch House was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Lauren Slater is an American psychotherapist and writer. She is the author of nine books, including Welcome To My Country (1996), Prozac Diary (1998), and Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir (2000). Her 2004 book Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century, a description of psychology experiments "narrated as stories," has drawn both praise and criticism. Criticism has focused on Slater's research methods and on the extent to which some of the experiences she describes may have been fictionalized.

Bernard Cooper is an American novelist, essayist and short story writer. His writings are in part autobiographical and influenced by his own experiences as a gay man. His work has appeared in numerous magazines, journals, and five volumes of The Best American Essays. Two of Cooper's novels have received literary awards. He is often described as a "writer's writer". Cooper has taught at the California Institute of the Arts and Bennington College, and in 2014 he served as the Bedell Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Iowa's nonfiction writing program.

Robin Marantz Henig is a freelance science writer, and contributor to the New York Times Magazine. Her articles have appeared in Scientific American, Seed, Discover and women's magazines. She writes book reviews and occasional essays for the Washington Post, as well as articles for The New York Times science section, op-ed page, and Book Review.

Lillian Faderman is an American historian whose books on lesbian history and LGBT history have earned critical praise and awards. The New York Times named three of her books on its "Notable Books of the Year" list. In addition, The Guardian named her book, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, one of the Top 10 Books of Radical History. She was a professor of English at California State University, Fresno, which bestowed her emeritus status, and a visiting professor at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She retired from academe in 2007. Faderman has been referred to as "the mother of lesbian history" for her groundbreaking research and writings on lesbian culture, literature, and history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Deborah Eisenberg</span> American short story writer

Deborah Eisenberg is an American short story writer, actress and teacher. She is a professor of writing at Columbia University.

Cynthia Zarin is an American poet and journalist.

Katy Butler is an American journalist, essayist and author of Knocking on Heaven's Door, the Path to a Better Way of Death, and The Art of Dying Well: A Practical Guide to a Good End of Life.

Katrina Kenison is an American author of literary memoir and nonfiction about parenting, life stages, mindfulness, and simplicity. Her first book, Mitten Strings for God: Reflections for Mothers in a Hurry, published in 2000, encourages parents of young children to restore balance and stillness to lives often spent on the run. "Inspirational and life-affirming, it offers reminders of what is of lasting value, such as grace, love, tranquility." In 2009, Kenison published The Gift of an Ordinary Day: A Mother's Memoir, an exploration of the challenges and rewards of parenting adolescents. Her memoir Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment, published in January 2013, is a personal account of the losses and lessons of the second half of life. Kenison is also the author, with Rolf Gates, of Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga. A graduate of Smith College, she lives in New Hampshire with her husband, Steven Lewers, and is the mother of two grown sons. She is a yoga instructor and a Reiki practitioner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elisa Albert</span> American author

Elisa Albert is the author of the short story collection How this Night is Different, the novels The Book of Dahlia, After Birth, and Human Blues, and an anthology, Freud's Blind Spot: Writers on Siblings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Avis DeVoto</span> American culinary editor, book reviewer, and cook

Avis DeVoto was an American culinary editor, book reviewer, and cook. She was highly influential in editing and guiding two famous cookbooks to publication: Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and the US edition of the British food writer Elizabeth David's Italian Food.

Patricia Beck was an American writer from New York state. She studied at Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont but dropped out after her mother's death. Beck kept a diary, wrote poetry, and published two short stories before committing suicide in 1978. Her papers were selected for inclusion in the Smith College women and disabilities collection, as they provide insight into chronic illness and depression.

References

  1. Smith, Dinitia (March 9, 2006). "Bernard Malamud's Daughter Finally Tells His Secrets – New York Times". The New York Times. Retrieved October 25, 2011.
  2. "Notable Books of the Year 1997 – New York Times". The New York Times. December 7, 1997. Retrieved October 25, 2011.
  3. "A Potent Spell – Opinions and Reviews". Dsml.org. Archived from the original on July 26, 2011. Retrieved October 25, 2011.
  4. 1 2 Smith, Janna Malamud (2006). My Father is a Book: A Memoir of Bernard Malamud. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN   0618691669.
  5. "BEST SELLERS - April 2, 2006 - List". New York Times. April 2, 2006. Retrieved October 25, 2011.
  6. Houghton Mifflin Company. "Press Release for The Best American Essays 2004 edited by Louis Menand, series edited by Robert Atwan, published by Houghton Mifflin Company". Hmhbooks.com. Retrieved October 25, 2011.
  7. "Brevity Book Review". Creativenonfiction.org. October 21, 2009. Retrieved October 25, 2011.
  8. "Cambridge Health Alliance : News". Challiance.org. March 15, 2006. Archived from the original on July 25, 2011. Retrieved October 25, 2011.
  9. "Harvard Mental Health Letter: About the Editors – Harvard Health Publications". Health.harvard.edu. Archived from the original on September 28, 2011. Retrieved October 25, 2011.