Jennifer Weiner

Infobox Writer


imagesize = 150px
name = Jennifer Weiner
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birthdate = birth date and age|1970|3|28|mf=y
birthplace = United States
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occupation = Novelist
nationality = American
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genre =Fiction
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notableworks ="In Her Shoes" (2002)
influenced =
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website = http://www.jenniferweiner.com/

Jennifer Weiner (March 28, 1970 [http://www.jenniferweiner.com/theauthor.htm Official bio] ] - ) is a Jewish American author and former journalist.

Background and career

Weiner was born in DeRidder, Louisiana where her father was stationed as an army physician. She (along with her younger sister and two brothers) eventually moved to in Simsbury, Connecticut where she spent most of her childhood. Her parents divorced when she was 16, a topic which features in many of her novels. Weiner was also influenced by her experience as one of "nine Jewish kids in her high school class of 400" at Simsbury High School. [http://www.hillel.org/about/news/2007/jul/weiner_06July07.htm Jennifer Warner: Chic Lit] ] She entered college at the age of 17 and received her B.A. "summa cum laude" in English from Princeton University in 1991 (having studied with J.D. McClatchy, Ann Lauterbach, John McPhee, Toni Morrison, and Joyce Carol Oates).

After college, Weiner became a cub reporter for the "Centre Daily Times", the daily newspaper of State College, Pennsylvania. After moving on to Kentucky's "Lexington Herald-Leader" while maintaining a column about Generation X, she eventually found a position with "The Philadelphia Inquirer" as a features reporter. She worked steadily as a journalist until publishing her first novel, "Good In Bed" in 2001. After publishing her second novel, "In Her Shoes" in 2002, it was optioned as a film. "In Her Shoes" starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley MacLaine was released in 2005. Weiner has written five novels to date, all of which have Jewish protagonists.

Chick lit

Weiner's has repeatedly defended the "Chick Lit" label which is often attached to her novels. In a 09 March 2005 article for beatrice.com titled, "Gray Ladies Up," Weiner responds to an article on "Chick Lit" by Meg Wolitzer [ [http://www.beatrice.com/archives/001222.html In Praise of Pink Ladies] ] which she felt was a thinly veiled critique of the genre. In doing so, Weiner contrasts "Chick Lit" with what she refers to as "Gray Lady Lit" stating: "There's a graduate thesis somewhere in the economics of so-called 'assistant lit,' where smart young women wind up as underpaid, under appreciated indentured servants to thinly-veiled versions of Wolitzer's Upper East Side neighbors [..] The best chick-lit books deal with race and class, gender wars and workplace dynamics, not just shoes and shopping…and they do it adroitly, with warmth and wit, for readers young and old, in blue states and red." [ [http://www.beatrice.com/archives/001240.html Gray Ladies Up] ] In her blog on 07 June 2008, Weiner responds to another article on "Chick Lit", a review by Curtis Sittenfeld of a Melissa Bank novel. [ [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/books/review/05SITT01.html?_r=1&oref=slogin 'The Wonder Spot': Sophie's Choices ] ] Weiner deconstructs the Sittenfeld's review and states: "The more I think about the review, the more I think about the increasingly angry divide between ladies who write literature and chicks who write chick lit, the more it seems like a grown-up version of the smart versus pretty games of years ago; like so much jockeying for position in the cafeteria and mocking the girls who are nerdier/sluttier/stupider than you to make yourself feel more secure about your own place in the pecking order." [ [http://jenniferweiner.blogspot.com/2005/06/in-between-unloading-my-galleys-and.html A Moment of Jen, June 7, 2008] ] In a follow-up interview with the "San Francisco Chronicle" on the Bank/Sittenfeld articles, Weiner commented, "I'd say this is a reaction against women gaining power and economic stature in the marketplace. Book sales are flat, chick lit sales are up. And that's scary to a lot of people. It's better for the establishment to slap it down, degrade it." [ [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/30/LVGSOFCGM21.DTL&type=printable A feminist fights back against 'chick lit' label] ]

Publications

*"Good in Bed" (2001)
*"In Her Shoes" (2002)
*"Little Earthquakes" (2004)
*"Goodnight Nobody" (2005)
*"The Guy Not Taken" (2006)
*"Certain Girls" (2008)

References

*Ganahl, Jane. " [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/30/LVGSOFCGM21.DTL&type=printable A feminist fights back against 'chick lit' label] ." "San Francisco Chronicle", October 30, 2005.
*Jacobs, Julie. " [http://www.hillel.org/about/news/2007/jul/weiner_06July07.htm Jennifer Weiner: Chic lit] ." "Hillel". July 6, 2007.

Notes

External links

* [http://www.jenniferweiner.com/ Official website]
* [http://www.simonsays.com/content/destination.cfm?tab=1&pid=360337 Simon & Schuster official website]
*imdb name|id=1497265|name=Jennifer Weiner