Jennifer Weiner | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1970-03-28)March 28, 1970 (age 54) DeRidder, Louisiana, U.S. |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Education | Princeton University (AB) |
| Genre | Fiction,Women's fiction |
| Notable works | Good in Bed (2001) In Her Shoes (2002) |
| Spouse | Bill Syken (m. 2016) |
| Children | 2 |
| Website | |
| jenniferweiner | |
Jennifer Weiner (born March 28, 1970)[1] is an American writer, television producer, and journalist. She is based inPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania. Herdebut novel, published in 2001, wasGood in Bed. Her novelIn Her Shoes (2002) was made into amovie starringCameron Diaz,Toni Collette, andShirley MacLaine.
Weiner was born to aJewish family[2] inDeRidder, Louisiana, where her father was stationed as an army physician. The next year, her family (including a younger sister and two brothers) moved toSimsbury, Connecticut, where Weiner spent her childhood.
When Weiner was 16, her father abandoned the family. He died of acrack cocaine overdose in 2008.[3]
Her first novel,Good in Bed, is loosely based on her young-adult life: like the main character, Cannie Shapiro, Weiner's parents divorced when she was 16, and her mother came out as a lesbian at age 55.
Weiner has said that she was "one of only nine Jewish kids in her high school class of 400" atSimsbury High School.[4] She enteredPrinceton University at the age of 17 and graduated summa cum laude with an A.B. in English in 1991 after completing an 86-page-long senior thesis titled "'Never Far From Mother --' On the Uses ofEssentialism in Novels and Films."[4][5]
At Princeton, Weiner studied withJ. D. McClatchy,Ann Lauterbach,John McPhee,Toni Morrison, andJoyce Carol Oates.[1] Her first published story, "Tour of Duty," appeared inSeventeen in 1992.[1]
After graduating from college, Weiner joined theCentre Daily Times, the daily newspaper ofState College, Pennsylvania, where she managed the education beat and wrote a regular column called "Generation XIII" (referring to the 13th generation following the American Revolution), aka "Generation X." From there, she moved on to Kentucky'sLexington Herald-Leader, still penning her "Generation XIII" column, before finding a job withThe Philadelphia Inquirer as a features reporter. She continued to write for theInquirer, freelancing on the side forMademoiselle,Seventeen, and other publications,[4] until after her first novel,Good in Bed, was published in 2001. In 2005, her second novel,In Her Shoes (2002), was made into a feature film starringCameron Diaz,Toni Collette andShirley MacLaine by20th Century Fox. Her sixth novel,Best Friends Forever, was a No. 1New York Times bestseller and madePublishers Weekly's list of the longest-running bestsellers of the year.[6] To date, she is the author of nine bestselling books, including eight novels and a collection of short stories, with a reported 11 million copies in print in 36 countries.[7] Her novelThe Next Best Thing was published bySimon & Schuster in July 2012. Her writing on gender and culture appears frequently inThe New York Times.
In addition to writing fiction, Weiner is a co-creator and executive producer of the (now-cancelled)ABC Family sitcomState of Georgia, and she is known for "live-tweeting" episodes of the reality dating showsThe Bachelor andThe Bachelorette. In 2011,TIME named her to its list of the Top 140 Twitter Feeds "shaping the conversation."[8] She is a self-described feminist.[9]
Weiner has been a vocal critic of what she sees as the male bias in the publishing industry and the media, alleging that books by male authors are better received than those written by women, that is, reviewed more often and more highly praised by critics. In 2010, she toldThe Huffington Post, "I think it's a very old and deep-seated double standard that holds that when a man writes about family and feelings, it's literature with a capital L, but when a woman considers the same topics, it's romance, or a beach book – in short, it's something unworthy of a serious critic's attention. ... I think it's irrefutable that when it comes to picking favorites – those lucky few writers who get the double reviews AND the fawning magazine profile AND the back-page essay space AND the op-ed ... the Times tends to pick white guys."[10] In a 2011 interview withThe Wall Street Journal blogSpeakeasy, she said, "There are gatekeepers who say chick lit doesn’t deserve attention but then they review Stephen King."[11] WhenJonathan Franzen's novelFreedom was published in 2010 to critical acclaim and extensive media coverage (including a cover story inTIME[12]), Weiner criticized what she saw as the ensuing "overcoverage,"[13] igniting a debate over whether the media's adulation of Franzen was an example of entrenched sexism within the literary establishment.[14][15][16] Though Weiner received some backlash from other female writers for her criticisms,[17] a 2011 study by the organization VIDA bore out many of her claims,[18][19] and Franzen himself, in an interview withThe Daily Telegraph, agreed with her: "To a considerable extent, I agree. When a male writer simply writes adequately about family, his book gets reviewed seriously, because: 'Wow, a man has actually taken some interest in the emotional texture of daily life', whereas with a woman it’s liable to be labelled chick-lit. There is a long-standing gender imbalance in what goes into the canon, however you want to define the canon."[20]
As for the label "chick lit", Weiner has expressed ambivalence towards it, embracing the genre it stands for while criticizing its use as a pejorative term for commercial women's fiction. "I’m not crazy about the label," she has said, "because I think it comes with a built-in assumption that you’ve written nothing more meaningful or substantial than a mouthful of cotton candy. As a result, critics react a certain way without ever reading the books."[4] In 2008, Weiner published a critique on her blog of a review byCurtis Sittenfeld of aMelissa Bank novel.[21] Weiner deconstructs Sittenfeld's review, writing, "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."[22]
In November 2019, Weiner participated in the harassment and abuse of Brooke Nelson, a college student who was mentioned in her local newspaper as saying she thought that authorSarah Dessen's YA novels were not suitable for the Common Read program run byNorthern State University, Aberdeen, and that she had advocated for the inclusion of civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson's memoir,Just Mercy, instead.[23] In a series of since-deleted tweets, Weiner described Nelson's opposition to Dessen's inclusion in the Common Reads program as "catty and cruel",[24] part of "systemic discrimination" against young women, and linked it to coverage of gymnastics doctorLarry Nassar'srepeated sexual assaults on young women.[25][26] She later stated that she had "zero regrets" regarding these remarks.[26] When the story was reported in Jezebel,[27] The Guardian,[24] the Washington Post,[28] and Slate,[29] Weiner reportedly regretted her actions.[30]
In Her Shoes (2002) was made into a major motion picture in 2005 withCameron Diaz,Toni Collette andShirley MacLaine. She also made a cameo appearance in this film.[31]
After signing a development deal withABC Family in 2008,[32] Weiner wrote a pilot for a half-hour sitcom with producerJeff Greenstein (Desperate Housewives), originally calledThe Great State of Georgia and starring a plus-sized young woman who aspires to be a Broadway star.[33] In 2010, the network ordered the show to series (renamedState of Georgia), and it went on to air 12 episodes in the summer of 2011. On September 16, Weiner announced the show's cancellation via Twitter.[34]
Weiner made her TV debut onThe Tony Danza Show in 2005, reappearing in 2006. She made a cameo appearance as herself in theYounger episode "The Jade Crusade" in 2016.
Weiner married attorney Adam Bonin in October 2001.[35] They have two children and separated in 2010. On March 19, 2016, she married writer Bill Syken.[36]
{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help)So this happened...last night, in the presence of family, friends, and way too much charcuterie, I married Bill Syken.
{{cite book}}:|website= ignored (help)