Lizzie Skurnick

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Lizzie Skurnick is a writer, critic and editor. [1] In 2007, she started Jezebel's Fine Lines column, "the feature in which we give a wrinkled look at the books we loved as youth," which she wrote until 2009. [1] [2] [3] Shelf Discovery, her book on young adult fiction of her youth, appeared from HarperCollins in 2009. [4]

Her YA publishing imprint, Lizzie Skurnick Books, was founded in 2013. [1] [5] The press's classic YA reprints have been praised by The Boston Globe , [6] The New York Times [7] many other publications and organizations. [8] The press's first original book, Isabel's War, published in 2014, received praise from The Wall Street Journal and other critical outlets and the Association of Jewish Libraries named it a Sydney Taylor Honor Book (second to the first prize winner). [9] [10] [11]

Skurnick's "That Should Be a Word" column appeared weekly in The New York Times Magazine's One Page Magazine from 2011 to 2014. [12] Her coinages have been praised and/or used by Bust Magazine , [13] Salon , [14] and ABC affiliates, [15] among others. The Mets' Ron Darling suggested his own addition to the series. [16] Skurnick's That Should Be a Word: A Language Lover’s Guide to Choregasms, Povertunity, Brattling, and 250 Other Much-Needed Terms for the Modern World, inspired by and expanding upon the column, was published by Workman in April 2015. [16]

Skurnick first became known as the founder of a litblog. [17]

Personal life

Skurnick identifies as black and Jewish. [18] [19] She has written that her parents' union was illegal in most of the United States when they married. [20] She has also written about her reasons for giving birth to her son through a sperm donor. [21] She was born in the Bronx and grew up in New Jersey. [22] She lives in Jersey City. [23] [24] On May 20, 2023, she married Matthew Lenaghan, a resident of Ossining.

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  11. "2015 Sydney Taylor Book Awards Announced by AJL" (PDF). Retrieved 2015-01-21.
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  13. Houlihan, Brittany. "There IS A Word For That! Check Out Writer Lizzie Skurnick's Hilarious Website". Bust. Retrieved 2015-01-21.
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  19. "The Royal Baby and Blackness as a Badge of Honor". www.msn.com. Retrieved May 8, 2019.
  20. Skurnick, Lizzie (2018-05-24). "Wedding, Schmedding". Lizzie Skurnick. Retrieved 2018-05-27.
  21. Skurnick, Lizzie (2016-06-01). "How I Shopped for My Son's Sperm Donor". ELLE. Retrieved 2018-05-27.
  22. "Elizabeth Skurnick". Poetry Foundation. 2018-05-27. Retrieved 2018-05-27.
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  24. McDonald, Terrence T. (2018-03-16). "Parents mixed on Jersey City teachers' strike". NJ.com. Retrieved 2018-05-27.