Stephanie Danler

Last updated
Stephanie Danler
Born1983 (age 40–41)
OccupationWriter
CitizenshipUnited States
Education Kenyon College
The New School (MFA)
Notable works Sweetbitter

Stephanie Danler (born 1983) [1] is an American author. Her debut novel, Sweetbitter (2016), was a New York Times bestseller and was adapted into a television show by the same name. She released a memoir, Stray, in 2020. Danler has a novel forthcoming from Scribner Books titled Smog, described as a neo-noir novel that takes place in Los Angeles during the 1990s. [2]

Contents

Life

Danler grew up in Seal Beach, California. [3] At age 16, she moved to Boulder, Colorado, to live with her father. [4] [5] She attended Kenyon College in Ohio. [3]

After moving to New York in 2006, Danler worked at Union Square Cafe for a year and earned an MFA in creative writing at the New School. [3] She was working at Buvette, a restaurant in the West Village when she earned her first book deal. [3]

In her early 30s, she moved to Los Angeles. [1] As of May 2020, she was living in Silver Lake with her husband and son, and was expecting her second child. [4]

Danler moved her family to Barcelona to work on Stray for a brief time, before returning to Los Angeles. [6]

Writing career

In 2014, Danler secured a six-figure, two-book publication deal with Knopf. [3] [7] She had sent her manuscript for Sweetbitter to an editor at Penguin – a regular customer at Buvette – who mentioned it to a colleague, who then acquired the book for Knopf. [3]

Sweetbitter, a novel based on her experiences of working at Union Square Cafe, was published in 2016. [7] It earned a starred review in Kirkus [8] and was a New York Times bestseller. [9] A review in The New Yorker said that "Danler deftly captures the unique power of hierarchy in the restaurant world, the role of drug and alcohol abuse, and the sense of borrowed grandeur that pervades the serving scene." [10] A television adaptation ( Sweetbitter), created by Danler, Stuart Zicherman, and Plan B Entertainment, [11] premiered on Starz in 2018 [12] and aired for two seasons. [13] In 2019, Danler was granted the Robert B. Heilman award by the Sewanee Review for her review of Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women. [14]

In 2020, she published a memoir, Stray, about "familial dysfunction and addiction" [15] and "the entanglement of love and disappointment." [4] Kirkus called it a "mostly moving text in which writing is therapeutic and family trauma is useful material." [15] A review in The New York Times described it as "carefully concocted but unfermented." [1] Marion Winik, writing for The Washington Post , gave Stray a mixed review with the comment: "Despite the author’s skills at observation and phrasemaking, the narrative manages to ping-pong between the two most dangerous possibilities in memoir: boring on one side, TMI on the other." [16] A review from the New Yorker noted that the memoir is “unsparing” but “tempered with the tenderness of Danler’s language, and with her willingness to reserve her harshest rebukes for herself.” [17]

Works

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Kelly, Hillary (2020-05-08). "In 'Stray,' Stephanie Danler Asks How a Victim Becomes a Perpetrator". The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-08-06.
  2. ↑ "Stephanie Danler". Stephanie Danler. Retrieved 2024-04-26.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Alter, Alexandra (2014-10-31). "And Our Fiction Special Tonight Is ..." The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-08-06.
  4. 1 2 3 Wappler, Margaret (2020-05-12). "She thought her past was painful; then Stephanie Danler wrote about it". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 2020-08-06.
  5. ↑ Danler, Stephanie (12 May 2016). "One Writer on Loving and Letting Go of Her Drug-Dependent Father". Vogue. Retrieved 2020-08-06.
  6. ↑ "Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books™️: Stephanie Danler, STRAY: A MEMOIR on Apple Podcasts". Apple Podcasts. Retrieved 2022-06-29.
  7. 1 2 Eckhardt, Stephanie (2018-05-06). "How Sweetbitter Became Sex and the City For the Foodie Generation". W Magazine | Women's Fashion & Celebrity News. Retrieved 2020-08-06.
  8. ↑ "Sweetbitter". Kirkus Reviews. 2016-02-15.
  9. ↑ "Hardcover Fiction Books - Best Sellers - July 10, 2016 - The New York Times". The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-08-06.
  10. ↑ "Briefly Noted Book Reviews". The New Yorker. 2016-06-20. Retrieved 2020-08-06.
  11. ↑ Andreeva, Nellie (2017-07-31). "'Sweetbitter' Drama Based On Book From Plan B In Series Consideration At Starz". Deadline. Retrieved 2020-08-06.
  12. ↑ Rosner, Helen. ""Sweetbitter," Reviewed: A Restaurant Story Where the Drama Is in the Dining Room". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2020-08-06.
  13. ↑ "'Sweetbitter' Canceled at Starz (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. 20 December 2019. Retrieved 2020-08-06.
  14. ↑ "Awards". Sewanee Review. 128 (1): 190. 2020. doi:10.1353/sew.2020.0016. ISSN   1934-421X.
  15. 1 2 "Stray: A Memoir". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved 2020-03-15.
  16. ↑ Winik, Marion (June 2, 2020). "After 'Sweetbitter,' does Stephanie Danler's memoir, 'Stray,' live up to the hype?". The Washington Post.
  17. ↑ Yorker, The New (2020-05-18). "Briefly Noted Book Reviews". The New Yorker. ISSN   0028-792X . Retrieved 2024-04-26.
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