Elizabeth M. Gilbert
(born July 18, 1969 in Waterbury, Connecticut) is an American novelist, essayist, short story writer, biographer and memoirist.
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Background
Her father was a chemical engineer, her mother a nurse. Along with her only sister, novelist and historian
Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Gilbert grew up on a small family
Christmas tree farm in
Litchfield, Connecticut. The family lived in the country with no neighbors, and they didn’t own a TV or even a record player. Consequently, they all read a great deal, and Gilbert and her sister entertained themselves by writing little books and plays.
[1] She attended
New York University and graduated in 1991 with a BA in Political Science, after which she lived the life of a literary vagabond — experiencing life as a cook, a waitress, and a magazine lackey — in order to write about it. Her experiences as a cook on a dude ranch found their way into both short stories and her book
The Last American Man
(Viking 2002).
Journalism
Esquire
published Gilbert's short story “Pilgrims” in 1993, under the headline, “The Debut of an American Writer.” She was the first unpublished short story writer to debut in
Esquire
since
Norman Mailer. This led to steady work as a journalist for a variety of national magazines including,
SPIN
,
GQ
,
The New York Times Magazine
,
Allure
,
Real Simple
, and
Travel + Leisure
.
Her 1997
GQ
article, "The Muse of the
Coyote Ugly Saloon," a memoir of Gilbert’s career as a bartender in a lowdown
East Village dive, was the basis for the film
Coyote Ugly
. She adapted her 1998
GQ
article, "
Eustace Conway is Not Like Any Man You've Ever Met," into a biography of the modern naturalist,
The Last American Man
. It received a nomination for the
National Book Award in
non-fiction. "The Ghost," a profile of Hank Williams III published by
GQ
in 2000, was included in Best American Magazine Writing 2001.
Books
Her first book
Pilgrims
(Houghton-Mifflin 1997), a collection of short stories, received the
Pushcart Prize and was a finalist for the
PEN/Hemingway Award. This was followed by her
novel Stern Men
(Houghton-Mifflin 2000), selected by
The New York Times
as a "Notable Book".
Most recently, she published
Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
(Viking, 2006), a chronicle of the author's year of spiritual and personal exploration while traveling abroad. The memoir was on the
New York Times Best Seller list
of non-fiction in the spring of 2006, and in October, 2008, after 88 weeks, the book was still on the list at # 2
[2]., and subsequently she appeared on
The Oprah Winfrey Show
[3] The book has been optioned by Columbia Pictures, with
Julia Roberts slated to star.
[4]
Bibliography
Story collections
- Pilgrims
, (1997) (Pushcart Prize, finalist for PEN/Hemingway Award)
Novels
Biographies
- The Last American Man
, (2002) (finalist for the National Book Award and National Book Critic's Circle Award)
Memoirs
As contributor
- The KGB Bar Reader: Buckle Bunnies
(1998)
- Why I Write: Thoughts on the Craft of Fiction
(contributor) (1999)
- A Writer's Workbook: Daily Exercises for the Writing Life
(foreword) (2000)
- The Best American Magazine Writing 2001: The Ghost
(2001)
References
- Elizabeth Gilbert, Zacharis Award
- Paperback Nonfiction ''New York Times'', October 3, 2008.
- Why We Can't Stop Talking About Eat, Pray, Love! ''The Oprah Winfrey Show''.
- Par setting table for adaptation