Jennifer Weiner
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Jennifer Weiner | |
|---|---|
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| Born | March 28, 1970 DeRidder, Louisiana |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Nationality | American |
| Genres | Fiction |
| Notable work(s) | In Her Shoes (2002) |
| Official website | |
Jennifer Weiner (born March 28, 1970)[1] is a Jewish American author and former journalist.
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[edit] 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.[2] She entered college at the age of 17[2] and received her bachelor of arts 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.[1]
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 seven novels to date, all of which have Jewish protagonists.[1][2] She has stated that she is a feminist[3].
[edit] Chick lit
Weiner's has repeatedly defended the "Chick lit" label which is often attached to her novels. In a March 9, 2005, article for beatrice.com titled "Gray Ladies Up", Weiner responds to an article on "Chick Lit" by Meg Wolitzer[4] that 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."[5]
In her blog on June 7, 2008, Weiner responds to another article on "Chick lit", a review by Curtis Sittenfeld of a Melissa Bank novel.[6] 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."[7] 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."[8]
[edit] Publications
- Good in Bed (2001)
- In Her Shoes (2002)
- Little Earthquakes (2004)
- Goodnight Nobody (2005)
- The Guy Not Taken (2006)
- Certain Girls (2008)
- Best Friends Forever (2009)
[edit] References
- Ganahl, Jane. "A feminist fights back against 'chick lit' label." San Francisco Chronicle, October 30, 2005.
- Jacobs, Julie. "Jennifer Weiner: Chic lit." Hillel. July 6, 2007.
