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Meg Wolitzer

b. 1959

American writer

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About Meg Wolitzer

Born 1959. Meg Wolitzer is an American writer, novelist and university teacher.

Meg Wolitzer (born May 28, 1959) is an American novelist, known for The Wife, The Ten-Year Nap, The Uncoupling, The Interestings, and The Female Persuasion. She is a co-director of the BookEnds writing fellowship program at Stony Brook Southampton.

Life and career Wolitzer was born in Brooklyn and raised in Syosset, New York, the daughter of novelist Hilma Wolitzer (née Liebman) and psychologist Morton Wolitzer. She was raised Jewish. Wolitzer studied creative writing at Smith College and graduated from Brown University in 1981.

She wrote her first novel, Sleepwalking, a story of three college girls obsessed with poetry and death, while still an undergraduate; it was published in 1982. Her following books include Hidden Pictures (1986), This Is Your Life (1988), Surrender, Dorothy (1998), The Wife (2003), The Position (2005), The Ten-Year Nap (2008), The Uncoupling (2011), and The Interestings (2013). Her short story "Tea at the House" was featured in 1998's Best American Short Stories collection. Her novel for younger readers, The Fingertips of Duncan Dorfman, was published in 2011.

She also co-authored, with Jesse Green, a book of cryptic crosswords, Nutcrackers: Devilishly Addictive Mind Twisters for the Insatiably Verbivorous (1991), and has written about the relative difficulty women writers face in gaining critical acclaim.

She has taught creative writing at the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop, Skidmore College, and, most recently, was a guest artist at Princeton University. Over the past decade she has also taught at both Stony Brook Southampton's MFA in Creative Writing program and the Southampton Writers Conference and the Florence Writers Workshop. Three films have been based on her work: This Is My Life, scripted and directed by Nora Ephron; the 2006 made-for-television movie Surrender, Dorothy; and the 2017 drama The Wife, starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce.

The Uncoupling was the subject of the first coast-to-coast virtual book club discussion, via Skype.

As of 2018, Wolitzer resides on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, with her husband, science writer Richard Panek. , Belzhar (2014) , The Female Persuasion (2018) , To Night Owl from Dogfish (2019)

Children's books Millions of Maxes (2022)

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Important facts

Birth century
Nationality
Education
Brown University, Smith College, Syosset High School
Employers
University of Houston, Iowa Writers' Workshop

Family & relationships

Spouse
Richard Panek

People in Meg Wolitzer's life

Named in this biography and alive at the same time

Contemporaries

People whose lives overlapped Meg Wolitzer's

Frequently asked questions

Who is Meg Wolitzer?

American writer

When was Meg Wolitzer born?

Meg Wolitzer was born on 28 May 1959 in Brooklyn.

What is Meg Wolitzer's occupation?

Meg Wolitzer is a writer, novelist and university teacher.

What nationality is Meg Wolitzer?

Meg Wolitzer is American.

Sources & further reading

· Wikipedia: Meg Wolitzer

· Wikidata: Q6808023

· DBpedia: Meg Wolitzer

Cite this page

APA: Biography.guide. (2026). Meg Wolitzer. https://biography.guide/meg-wolitzer/

MLA: "Meg Wolitzer." Biography.guide, https://biography.guide/meg-wolitzer/.

Chicago: "Meg Wolitzer." Biography.guide. https://biography.guide/meg-wolitzer/.

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