Lauren Weisberger
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| Lauren Weisberger | |
 Lauren Weisberger |
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| Born: | March 28, 1977 (age 30) Scranton, Pennsylvania |
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| Occupation: | novelist, journalist |
| Nationality: |  USA |
| Writing period: | 2003-present |
| Genres: | chick lit |
| Website: | http://www.laurenweisberger.com/ |
Lauren Weisberger (born March 28, 1977 in Scranton, Pennsylvania) is an American novelist and author of the 2003 bestseller The Devil Wears Prada, a speculated roman à clef of her time as a put-upon assistant to Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour.
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[edit] Early years
Weisberger's mother was a school teacher and her father a department-store-president turned mortgage-broker. She spent her early youth in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, a small town outside Scranton. At age 11, her parents divorced and she and her younger sister, Dana, moved to Allentown, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of the state, with their mother.
In 1995, she graduated from Allentown's Parkland High School. During her time at Parkland, Weisberger was involved in various activities, including intramural sports, some competitive sports, extra projects, and organizations.
Following her graduation from high school, she attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where she was an English major and a sorority member of Alpha Epsilon Phi.[1] She graduated from Cornell in 1999, with a Bachelor's Degree in English. After college, she traveled as a backpacker through Europe, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Thailand, India, Nepal, and Hong Kong. Returning home, she moved to Manhattan and was hired as Wintour's assistant at Vogue. She was there for ten months before leaving along with features editor Richard Storey. While she herself said she felt out of place there, the magazine's managing editor, Laurie Jones, said "she seemed to be a perfectly happy, lovely woman".[2]
After leaving the fashion magazine, she wrote 100-word reviews for Departures Magazine, an American Express publication, before writing her first novel. She also published an article in Playboy magazine in 2004.[3]
Her success came really from her stint at Departures Magazine working as an assistant editor. After mentioning her interest in writing classes to her boss, Richard Story, he referred her to his long esteemed friend, Charles Salzberg. She started writing a story about her time at Vogue, trying to get done fifteen pages every couple of weeks. After continuous nudging for her to show her completed writing to agents, she finally did and within two weeks, it was sold.
Weisberger resides currently in New York City.
[edit] Author
[edit] The Devil Wears Prada
In 2003, Weisberger authored her first book, The Devil Wears Prada, which spent six months on the New York Times Best Seller List. The book provides a semi-fictional but highly critical view of the Manhattan elite's empty obsession with materialism and fashion. As of July 2006, The Devil Wears Prada was the best selling mass market softcover book in the nation, according to Publishers Weekly. The book is based largely off of Lauren's experience at Vogue. There is much speculation that Miranda Priestly is none other than the notorious Editor-in-chief of Vogue, Anna Wintour. The fictional Elias-Clark publishing company is said to be modeled after Condé Nast.
The book's protagonist is the 23-year old Andrea Sachs, who has just graduated from Brown University. She goes to New York City and lands herself a job at Runway Magazine working for a tyrannical boss, Miranda Priestly. She believes that if she can last one year as Miranda's assistant, she will be able to achieve her goal as a writer for The New Yorker. After many trials and tribulations including a breakup with her long-time boyfriend, a near-fatal accident of her best friend, and the myriad unreasonable requests of her boss, Andrea quits her job at Runway with only a month left until the end of her year. The book calls into light the many aspects of one's first job. It also highlights the presumed insanity of the fashion world and the difficulty and pressure a person goes through when trying to balance a demanding job with an adequate social life. The book provides a comical insight into the fashion world. While this book was met with stunning success, one former employee of Anna Wintour, Kate Betts, criticized Lauren and her book in The New York Times saying that Lauren and Anna are direct counterparts of their fictional characters and that, "Andrea...is just as much a snob as the snobs she is thrown in with."[4]She further hints that the character's portrayal within the book does not suggest that she is in any way above fetching lattes.
[edit] Film
A movie of the same name, The Devil Wears Prada, based on the book, was released by 20th Century Fox in June 2006, starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway. The film grossed $27.5 million in its opening weekend, amassing sales of $125 million in the United States and more than $322 million worldwide, making it one of the top grossing films of Summer 2006. Lauren Weisberger has a cameo appearance in the film and is briefly seen in the train scene with Miranda's twins. The film departs from the book in several ways, as when it shows that Andrea is sent to Paris with Miranda because of an accident that Emily, Miranda's other, more experienced assistant, has with a car. The book on the other hand, has Emily catching Mono and thus not being able to go with Miranda. Furthermore, Lily, Andrea's best friend, is the main reason why Andrea leaves Paris in the book. Lily is an alcoholic and gets into a car crash. Andrea has to decide whether to stay with Miranda or go to her friend. The movie does not include any of these details and ends with Andy and Miranda viewing one another with mutual respect. The book affords Andrea no such gratitude as she very rudely curses at Miranda and leaves Runway forever.
[edit] Television
In October 2006, Fox television acquired the television rights to the book, and a television series of the same name is expected to be developed by Fox in 2007. Lauren has been featured as herself on the television shows "Tout le monde en parle" and "The Today Show."[5]
[edit] Everyone Worth Knowing
Weisberger's second novel, Everyone Worth Knowing, was published in fall 2005, and is based upon the trials and tribulations of the New York City public relations world. It received generally unfavorable reviews. The New York Times Book Review described it as "fatuous, clunky." USA Today called it "lackluster imitation," and Entertainment Weekly said it was "ho-hum rehash."[6] Despite debuting on the New York Times Best Sellers List at #10, it dropped off the list in two weeks and was noted for its disappointing sales. Publisher Simon & Schuster paid Weisberger $1 million for the novel.[6]
[edit] American Girls About Town
A collection of 17 stories featuring writing by Lauren Weisberger. Her short story, "The Bamboo Confessions," is about a New York backpacker who travels around the world and begins to view her love life back home in a different light.
[edit] References
- ^ Alpha Epsilon Phi - Famous Phis. Alpha Epsilon Phi. Retrieved on 2007-03-13.
- ^ Oppenheimer, Jerry; Front Row: The Cool Life and Hot Times of Vogue's Editor In Chief, St. Martin's Press, New York, 2005, ISBN 0-3123-231-07, 328.
- ^ "About Lauren", from LaurenWeisberger.com. Accessed January 29, 2007.
- ^ "When Personal Assistants Attack," http://www.elizabethspiers.com/files/articles/002848.html. Accessed February 23, 2007.
- ^ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1916979/
- ^ a b Kinetz, Erika "Devil's in the Follow-Up" New York Times, November 6, 2005. Accessed January 28, 2007.
