Happy Holidays!
Thanks for finding me. I’m the author of 16 books (half fiction, half nonfiction) and have been "Dear Carol" at Girls' Life for 31 years. My recent letter in the New York Times answered the all-too-easy question: Is Reading Sexy? I teach writing and recently hosted a chateau slumber party: writing retreat in Bordeaux. I’m going back to France this October 11-17. Provence this time! If you want to join me there, email me soon.
My first book, GIRLTALK: All the Stuff Your Sister Never Told You came out in a dozen languages. Click for VERY PERSONAL ESSAYS and HALL OF FAME PHOTOS. I’ve had 65+ Letters to the Editor in the New York Times on everything from silencing authors to Gabriel García Márquez to reading to kids to helping the hurting. I teach at the New York Society Library and am occasionally on X, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. See?
SPEED OF LIFE came straight from the heart, as I say on TikTok. Julia Alvarez wrote: “You won’t want to put it down.” Listen to it on Spotify. Or let me read you the first page now. The New York Times called it "perceptive, funny and moving.” The critic said, “I laughed out loud and I teared up while reading this novel”—heck, I teared up reading that! Stars from Kirkus, School Library Journal, PW, Booklist. YALSA. New York Post: "Required Reading." Amazon—and Audible, Libro.fm. Speed of Life Discussion Guide.
AVA AND PIP, AVA AND TACO CAT, and AVA XOX are funny diaries of a fifth grader who’s obsessed with palindromes. The New York Times called it "a love letter to language" that "perfectly captures the complexities of sisterhood." Order here. My four Knopf novels include The Diary of Melanie Martin. Melanie and her brother, Matt the Brat, travel to Italy, Spain, Holland, and NYC.
Here’s how I got my start. And here are essays in Yale Alumni Magazine, Publishers Weekly, a Writer Experience podcast, and a recent interview.
Bio: Byram Hills HS in Armonk, NY; Twelfth grade in France (SYA); French/Spanish comp lit major at Yale (summa cum laude); M.A. in Spanish from Middlebury. I’ve been a guest onToday, The View, Oprah, Squawk Box, NY1, Twin Cities Live, CNN Español…
My husband Rob Ackerman is a playwright who spent 25 years at SNL and was honored at the Working Theater. New play: BackTalk. The New Yorker liked Dropping Gumballs on Luke Wilson. Daughter Lizzi and her husband started Birch Benders pancake mix: Today Show, Forbes. And now E+Patrol. Daughter Emme has a baby daughter of her own!
