Jeannette Walls

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Jeannette Walls

Jeannette Walls at the 2009 Texas Book Festival.
Born (1960-04-21) April 21, 1960
Phoenix, Arizona, US
Occupation Novelist, columnist
Genres Non-fiction
Notable work(s) The Glass Castle, Half Broke Horses

Jeannette Walls (born April 21, 1960) is an American writer and journalist widely known as former gossip columnist for MSNBC.com — and author of The Glass Castle, a memoir of the nomadic family life of her childhood, which stayed on the New York Times Best Seller list for 100 weeks.[1]

Early life and education

Walls was born on April 21, 1960 in Phoenix, Arizona to Rex Walls (deceased 1994), and Rose Mary Walls. Walls' family life was rootless, with the family shuttling from Phoenix, Arizona, California (including a brief stay in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco), Battle Mountain, Nevada, and Welch, West Virginia, with periods of homelessness. Walls moved to New York at age 17 and graduated in 1984 with honors from Barnard College. Walls has two sisters, Lori and Maureen, and one brother, Brian.

Personal life

Walls married Eric Goldberg in 1988 (divorced, 1996) and now lives outside Culpeper, Virginia, with her second husband, journalist John J. Taylor.

Career

Early in her career Walls interned at a Brooklyn newspaper called The Phoenix and eventually became a full-time reporter there. From 1987 to 1993 she wrote the "Intelligencer" column for New York magazine.[2] She contributed regularly to the gossip column "Scoop" at MSNBC.com from 1998[2] until her departure to write full-time in 2007.[3][4] She has also written for Esquire (1993–1998),[2] and USA Today,[2] and has appeared on The Today Show, CNN, Primetime, and The Colbert Report.

Her 2000 book, Dish: The Inside Story on the World of Gossip, was a humorous history of the role gossip has played in U.S. media, politics and life.[5] In that book, Walls incidentally outed conservative cyber-gossip Matt Drudge as gay.[6]

In 2005, Walls published the best-selling memoir The Glass Castle,[7] which details the joys and struggles of her childhood. It offers a look into her life and that of her charismatic but dysfunctional family. The Glass Castle was well received by critics and the public.[8] It has sold over 2.7 million copies and has been translated into 22 languages. It received the Christopher Award, the American Library Association's Alex Award (2006), and the Books for Better Living Award.[9] Paramount bought the film rights to the book,[10] and in March 2013 announced that actress Jennifer Lawrence would play Walls in the movie adaptation.

In 2009, Walls published her first novel, Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel, based on the life of her grandmother Lily Casey Smith.

Walls's latest novel, titled "The Silver Star" was published on June 11, 2013.

Works

  • The Glass Castle. New York: Scribner. March 2005. ISBN 0-7432-4753-1. 
  • Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel. New York: Scribner. October 2009. ISBN 1-4165-8628-8. 
  • Dish: The Inside Story on the World of Gossip. New York: Avon Books, Inc. March 2000. ISBN 0-380-97821-0. 
  • The Silver Star. Scribner, 2013.

References

  1. ↑ "Best-selling author to speak in Fremont". The Muskegon Chronicle, Susan Harrison Wolffis, June 3, 2008. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "Jeannette Walls". NotableBiographies.com. 
  3. ↑ MSNBC (2007-07-26). "Jeannette Walls leaving msnbc.com". MSNBC.COM. Retrieved 2007-08-12. 
  4. ↑ "Jeannette Walls, author, The Glass Castle, gossip columnist, MSNBC.com". Gothamist. 2005-05-27. Retrieved 2007-04-11. 
  5. ↑ "Nonfiction Review: Dish:: The Inside Story on the World of Gossip by Jeannette Walls, Author William Morrow & Company $25 (384p) ISBN 978-0-380-97821-2". Publishersweekly.com. 2000-02-28. Retrieved 2012-11-30. 
  6. ↑ Signorile, Michelangelo (2003). Queer in America. Univ of Wisconsin Press. p. 408. ISBN 0-299-19374-8. 
  7. ↑ Walls, Jeannette (2006). The Glass Castle. New York: Scribner. ISBN 0-7432-4754-X. 
  8. ↑ "The Glass Castle Background". GradeSaver. 2011-03-31. Retrieved 2012-11-30. 
  9. ↑ "Porter-Gaud hosts noted author Walls". Post and Courier, FYI, September 20, 2007. 
  10. ↑ "Pitt's Plan B inks deal with Paramount". M & C News, Jun 23, 2005. 

External links

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