Anna Quindlen

Anna Quindlen
Born July 8, 1953
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Residence Manhattan, New York
Occupation Columnist, novelist
Spouse(s) Gerald Krovatin

Anna Marie Quindlen (born July 8, 1953) is an American author, journalist, and opinion columnist whose New York Times column, Public and Private, won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1992. She began her journalism career in 1974 as a reporter for the New York Post. Between 1977 and 1994 she held several posts at The New York Times.[1]

Life and career

Quindlen left journalism in 1995 to become a full-time novelist.

In 1999, she joined Newsweek, writing a bi-weekly column until announcing her semi-retirement in the May 18, 2009 issue of the magazine. Quindlen is known as a critic of what she perceives to be the fast-paced and increasingly materialistic nature of modern American life. Much of her personal writing centers on her mother who died at the age of 40 from ovarian cancer, when Quindlen was 19 years old.

She has written five best-selling novels, two of which have been made into movies. One True Thing was made into a feature film in 1998 for which Meryl Streep received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Black and Blue and Blessings were made into television movies in 1999 and 2003 respectively.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to an Irish father and an Italian mother, Quindlen graduated in 1970 from South Brunswick High School in South Brunswick, New Jersey [2] and then attended Barnard College from which she graduated in 1974. She is married to prominent New Jersey attorney Gerald Krovatin whom she met while in college.

Quindlen participates in LearnedLeague under the name "QuindlenA".[3]

Criticism

Writing in The New Republic, critic Lee Siegel cited Quindlen as an example of the "monsters of empathy" who "self subjugate and domesticate and assimilate every distant tragedy." He coined the term "The Quindlen Effect" to describe this phenomenon and suggested that it began with her Times column of December 13, 1992, in which Quindlen assailed the four alleged perpetrators of the Glen Ridge rape. "True to her niche," Siegel wrote, "Quindlen attacked with scathing indignation actions that no sane Times reader would ever defend."[4]

In 2000, Villanova University invited Anna Quindlen to deliver the annual commencement address. But once the announcement was made, a group of conservative students staged a protest against Quindlen’s strong liberal views. The commencement was cancelled. Rather than retreat, however, she emailed the undelivered commencement address to a Villanova graduate student who had expressed disappointment at the situation. Years before the social web as we know it today, the speech spread like wildfire across the internet. A few months later, Quindlen expanded it into the book A Short Guide to a Happy Life.

Works

Nonfiction

Novels

Children's books

New table pictorials

Speeches

Awards

Industry awards

Honorary degrees

Other awards from universities

Other awards

References

  1. ↑ "Authors - Anna Quindlen". Newsweek (newsweek.com). Retrieved February 18, 2011.
  2. ↑ Kalet, Hank. "From South Brunswick High School to a Pulitzer Prize: Nationally renowned writer, journalist has local roots", South Brunswick Post, June 21, 2001. Accessed July 9, 2007. "Anna Quindlen has a busy schedule
  3. ↑ http://learnedleague.com/profiles.php?quindlena
  4. ↑ http://www.newrepublic.com/article/books-and-arts/sweet-and-low
  5. ↑ New York Journal of Books

External links

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