Meg Wolitzer

Last updated
Meg Wolitzer
Meg wolitzer 2011.jpg
Wolitzer at the 2011 Texas Book Festival, Austin
Born (1959-05-28) May 28, 1959 (age 65)
New York City, U.S.
OccupationWriter
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater Smith College
Brown University
Period1982–present
Genre Literary fiction
Notable worksThe Ten-Year Nap, The Uncoupling, The Interestings
Spouse Richard Panek
Signature
Meg Wolitzer signature (cropped).jpg
Website
megwolitzer.com

Meg Wolitzer (born May 28, 1959) is an American novelist, known for The Wife , The Ten-Year Nap, The Uncoupling,The Interestings, and The Female Persuasion. She works as an instructor in the MFA program at Stony Brook Southampton.

Contents

Life and career

Wolitzer was born in Brooklyn and raised in Syosset, New York, the daughter of novelist Hilma Wolitzer (née Liebman) and psychologist Morton Wolitzer. [1] [2] She was raised Jewish. [3] Wolitzer studied creative writing at Smith College and graduated from Brown University in 1981.

She wrote her first novel, Sleepwalking, a story of three college girls obsessed with poetry and death, while still an undergraduate; it was published in 1982. [4] Her following books include Hidden Pictures (1986), This Is Your Life (1988), Surrender, Dorothy (1998), The Wife (2003), The Position (2005), The Ten-Year Nap (2008), The Uncoupling (2011), and The Interestings (2013). Her short story "Tea at the House" was featured in 1998's Best American Short Stories collection. Her novel for younger readers, The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman, was published in 2011.

She also co-authored, with Jesse Green, a book of cryptic crosswords, Nutcrackers: Devilishly Addictive Mind Twisters for the Insatiably Verbivorous (1991), and has written about the relative difficulty women writers face in gaining critical acclaim. [5]

She has taught creative writing at the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop, Skidmore College, and, most recently, was a guest artist at Princeton University. Over the past decade she has also taught at both Stony Brook Southampton's MFA in Creative Writing program and the Southampton Writers Conference and the Florence Writers Workshop. [6] Three films have been based on her work: This Is My Life , scripted and directed by Nora Ephron; the 2006 made-for-television movie Surrender, Dorothy ; and the 2017 drama The Wife , starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce.

The Uncoupling was the subject of the first coast-to-coast virtual book club discussion, via Skype. [7]

As of 2018, Wolitzer resides in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, with her husband, science writer Richard Panek. [1]

Works

Novels


Children’s Books

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Lyall, Sarah (2018-03-23). "Why Now May (Finally) Be Meg Wolitzer's Moment". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2018-03-26.
  2. "Wolitzer, Hilma 1930-". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 29 December 2021.
  3. "Q&A: Meg Wolitzer on Sex, Suburbs — and the Workmen's Circle". The Jewish Daily Forward. April 28, 2011. Archived from the original on 7 June 2012.
  4. "Writing About Women Who Are Soccer Moms Without Soccer". New York Times. March 25, 2008. Retrieved September 4, 2011.
  5. Meg Wolitzer (March 30, 2012). "The Second Shelf". The New York Times. Retrieved April 29, 2013.
  6. "Faculty & Staff | Southampton Arts".
  7. "New chapter begins for book clubs as author takes discussion online". Edmonton Journal. September 4, 2011. Retrieved September 4, 2011.
  8. Doll, Jen (May 9, 2013). "The Author Eveyrone's Interested In: Meg Wolitzer and 'The Interestings'". The Atlantic.
  9. Gentry, Amy. "Review: 'The Female Persuasion' by Meg Wolitzer". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2018-03-26.
  10. "Meg Wolitzer's New Novel is Right for the #MeToo Moment". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 2018-03-26.