| Elizabeth Wurtzel | |
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| Born | Elizabeth Lee Wurtzel July 31, 1967 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | corporate attorney, Author, journalist |
| Nationality | American |
| Genres | Confessional memoir |
| Notable work(s) | Prozac Nation |
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Elizabeth Lee Wurtzel (born July 31, 1967)[1] is an American corporate attorney, writer and journalist, known for her work in the confessional memoir genre. She is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School.
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Wurtzel was brought up in New York City in a Jewish family. Her parents divorced when she was young. As described in her memoir Prozac Nation, Wurtzel's depression began at the ages of 10 to 12. She attended the Ramaz School in the Upper East Side of New York City.[2] While an undergraduate at Harvard College, she wrote for The Harvard Crimson and The Dallas Morning News. Wurtzel also received the 1986 Rolling Stone College Journalism Award.[3][4]
Wurtzel is best known for publishing her memoir, the best-selling Prozac Nation, at the age of 26. The book chronicles her battle with depression while being a college undergraduate and her experience with the medication Prozac. The film adaptation of Prozac Nation, starring Christina Ricci, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2001.[5] It was also telecasted on the Starz! network in March 2005[6] and was released on DVD in the summer of 2005.
Following her graduation from Harvard, Wurtzel moved to Greenwich Village in New York City and found work as pop music critic for The New Yorker and New York Magazine.
In the early 2000s, she applied to Yale Law School and was accepted despite the fact that "… Her combined LSAT score of 160 was, as she put it, 'adequately bad' … 'Suffice it to say I was admitted for other reasons,' Ms. Wurtzel said. 'My books, my accomplishments.'…"[7] She graduated at the end of the 2008 term, but failed the New York bar exam the first time she took it. Wurtzel sparked controversy in the legal community by holding herself out as a lawyer in interviews, even though she was not licensed to practice law in any jurisdiction at the time.[8] However, Wurtzel passed the February 2010 New York State bar exam, and has practiced law at Boies, Schiller & Flexner in New York City since 2008.[9] In July 2010, she wrote a proposal in the Brennan Law Center blog for abolishing bar exams.[10]
She writes on a regular basis for The Wall Street Journal.[11]
In 2009 Wurtzel published an article in Elle magazine about societal pressures related to aging[12]
Wurtzel's latest book is entitled "Creatocracy" and is due for publication later in 2011. It is based on the thesis she wrote about intellectual property law upon graduation from Yale Law school. [1]
On September 21, 2008 after the suicide of David Foster Wallace, Wurtzel wrote an article for New York about time spent with him.[13]
In January 2009, she authored an article at The Guardian,[14] arguing that the vehemence of opposition demonstrated in Europe to Israel's actions in the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict, when compared to the international reaction to human rights abuses in China, Darfur and Arab countries, suggested an antisemitic undercurrent fueling the outrage. In her words,
| “ | But to communicate with anyone I think of as right-minded (and left-leaning) in any other part of the world [i.e. outside the US] is to experience the purest antisemitism since the Nazi era. In fact, in Europe right now, it is de rigueur to liken the current regime in Israel with the Nazi party, and to view the experience of the Palestinians as a form of ethnic cleansing. Hamas and Hezbollah are thought by the French and British to be social welfare organisations, and Israel is viewed as a terrorist state. | ” |
| “ | ...with all the troubles in the world, with the terrible things that the Chinese do in Tibet, and do to their own citizens; with the horrors of genocide committed in Darfur by Sudanese Muslims; with all the bad things that Arab governments in the Middle East visit upon their own people — no need for Israel to have a perfectly horrible time — still, the focus is on what the Jews may or may not be doing wrong in Gaza. And it makes people angry and vehement as nothing else does. The vitriol it inspires is downright weird. | ” |