People are starved for honest stories, stories in which the teller, or the writer, isn’t puffing themselves up or making more (or less) out of something that happened to them, but rather, trying to lay it out in all its bare truthfulness, without regard for how he or she will be judged. I found a way, while working on Slow Motion, to really almost willfully not think about people eventually reading it. I told myself that I could change my mind about publishing it. That I could always pull it back. And by doing so, I enabled myself to take risks that I otherwise might not have taken. I wasn’t interested in protecting myself—I was interested in telling a story as truthfully as I could.

—Dani Shapiro

Dani Shapiro’s thought-provoking books—from the bestselling memoir Slow Motion to stirring domestic dramas like Family History—illuminate the meaning behind the seemingly everyday trials of “normal” lives. The Los Angeles Times touts her talents as an “abundantly emotional writer with a deep understanding of life’s banal blessings.”

Shapiro is the author of five acclaimed novels, Playing with Fire, Fugitive Blue, Picturing the Wreck, Family History and her most recent, Black & White (Knopf, 2007), which will be made into a film starring and directed by Christina Ricci.

She also wrote the highly acclaimed memoir Slow Motion: A True Story (Random House, 1998). Written with the narrative pacing of a novel, this memoir is the story of Shapiro's rebellion against her Orthodox Jewish family—an act so fierce and difficult that it nearly resulted in her self-destruction.

In her young adulthood, Shapiro dropped out of college after becoming the mistress of her best friend’s stepfather, a prominent Manhattan lawyer. Leaving her religious roots far behind, she embarked on several years of acting and modeling, fueled by drugs and alcohol, living a dissolute and wasteful life at odds with both her upbringing and her true nature. But then her parents were in a terrible car crash on a snowy night, and in an instant, Shapiro’s life was divided into before and after. At the age of twenty-three, grieving the loss of her beloved father, nursing her badly-injured mother back to health, Shapiro found a strength and fortitude she hadn't known was possible. Slow Motion is truly a story of self-destruction, rebellion, redemption and return.

Dani Shapiro’s short stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Tin House, Elle, Bookforum, Vogue, Oprah and Ploughshares among others, and have been broadcast on National Public Radio. Her books have been translated into seven languages and she is currently a contributing editor at Travel + Leisure.

A gifted teacher and writer, Shapiro has mentored many young novelists while teaching at some of the best writing programs in the country, including Columbia University, New York University and The New School. She also helped establish the Sirenland Writers Conference in Positano, Italy.

She lives with her husband and young son in Litchfield County, Connecticut and is a visiting writer at Wesleyan University.


SELECTED WRITINGS

Books

• Black & White (Knopf, 2007)
• Family History (Knopf, 2003)
• Slow Motion: A True Story (Random House, 1998)
• Picturing the Wreck (Doubleday, 1996)
• Fugitive Blue (Doubleday, 1993)   
• Playing with Fire (Doubleday, 1990)

Periodicals

• Frame by Frame (Vogue - June 2007)
  
• There is No Me Without You (Elle - February 2007)   
• The Six Poisons (One Story- January 2006)    
• Mommie Dearest (Real Simple - January 2006)   
• My Mother, Not Myself (Elle - March 2005)   
• Enter Smiling (Oprah Magazine - May 2004)   
• Worried Sick (Elle - December 2003)
• My Name is Dani and I am Not An Alcoholic (Elle - December 2001)
• The Secret Wife (The New Yorker - August 1998)
  

Selected Awards

2007  Front Page Award for Criticism/Commentary

To hear an interview with Dani Shapiro from NPR's Weekend Edition, click here.

For more information on Dani Shapiro and her work, go to www.danishapiro.com.