Katharine Weber
Encyclopedia
Katharine Weber is an American
novelist.
Weber was born in New York City
. She grew up in the Forest Hills Gardens section of Queens, New York
. She attended The Kew-Forest School and Forest Hills High School
before attending the Freshman Year Program at The New School
for Social Research (now Eugene Lang College at New School University) in 1972. Weber attended Yale
as a part-time undergraduate from 1982 to 1984.
In 1976, she married Nicholas Fox Weber and moved to Connecticut
. Two daughters, Lucy and Charlotte, were born in 1981 and 1983. Weber's maternal grandmother was the songwriter Kay Swift
. Since Swift's death in 1993, Weber has been a Trustee and the Administrator of the Kay Swift Memorial Trust. In 2004 she was artistic advisor for a restoration recording project with the non-profit label PS Classics that resulted in the release of a CD of the complete score, with Broadway performers and an orchestra conducted by Aaron Gandy, of the 1930 hit Broadway musical Fine and Dandy.
in January 1993. Her short fiction has also appeared in Story
, Redbook
, Southwest Review
, Gargoyle
, The Connecticut Review, the Vestal Review
, Boulevard Magenta and elsewhere. Her short story "Sleeping", originally in Vestal Review and anthologized several times, is being made into a short dramatic film by Group-Six Productions. Her first novel, Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear, was published in 1995. She was named by Granta
to the controversial list of 50 Best Young American Novelists in 1996. Her second novel, The Music Lesson, was published in 1999 and has since been translated into thirteen foreign languages. Her third novel, The Little Women, a Finalist for the Paterson Fiction Prize, was published 2003. All three novels have been named Notable Books by The New York Times Book Review
. Her fourth novel, Triangle, which is about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
of 1911, was published in 2006, won the 2007 Connecticut Book Award for Fiction, and was a Finalist for the Paterson Fiction Prize and the John Gardner Fiction Book Award. Triangle was also longlisted for the 2008 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
. Her fifth novel, True Confections, was published by Shaye Areheart Books in January, 2010. Her literary essays have appeared in numerous recent anthologies. Her sixth book, a memoir called The Memory of All That: George Gershwin, Kay Swift, and My Family's Legacy of Infidelities, will be published in July 2011.
Weber was elected to a term on the board of the National Book Critics Circle
, serving from 2001 to 2003.
She has written book reviews, essays, and columns for several publications, including the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune
, The London Review of Books, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, New Haven Register, The New Leader, The New York Times
, The New York Times Book Review
, Publishers Weekly
, Vogue and Washington Post Bookworld.
Weber has taught fiction writing at Yale University
, Goucher College
, the Paris Writers Workshop and elsewhere, and she is currently a graduate thesis advisor in the writing program at the School of the Arts at Columbia University
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
novelist.
Weber was born in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. She grew up in the Forest Hills Gardens section of Queens, New York
Queens
Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....
. She attended The Kew-Forest School and Forest Hills High School
Forest Hills High School
Forest Hills High School , dedicated in 1937, is a public secondary school in Queens, New York City. It educates students in grades 9–12 and is operated by the New York City Department of Education.- Location :...
before attending the Freshman Year Program at The New School
The New School
The New School is a university in New York City, located mostly in Greenwich Village. From its founding in 1919 by progressive New York academics, and for most of its history, the university was known as the New School for Social Research. Between 1997 and 2005 it was known as New School University...
for Social Research (now Eugene Lang College at New School University) in 1972. Weber attended Yale
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
as a part-time undergraduate from 1982 to 1984.
In 1976, she married Nicholas Fox Weber and moved to Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
. Two daughters, Lucy and Charlotte, were born in 1981 and 1983. Weber's maternal grandmother was the songwriter Kay Swift
Kay Swift
Kay Swift was an American composer of popular and classical music, the first woman to score a complete musical. Written in 1930, Fine and Dandy includes some of her best known songs; the title song has become a jazz standard. "Can't We Be Friends?" was another important hit...
. Since Swift's death in 1993, Weber has been a Trustee and the Administrator of the Kay Swift Memorial Trust. In 2004 she was artistic advisor for a restoration recording project with the non-profit label PS Classics that resulted in the release of a CD of the complete score, with Broadway performers and an orchestra conducted by Aaron Gandy, of the 1930 hit Broadway musical Fine and Dandy.
Writing career
Her fiction debut in print, the short story "Friend of the Family", appeared in The New YorkerThe New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
in January 1993. Her short fiction has also appeared in Story
Story (magazine)
Story was a magazine founded in 1931 by journalist-editor Whit Burnett and his first wife, Martha Foley, in Vienna, Austria. Showcasing short stories by new authors, 67 copies of the debut issue were mimeographed in Vienna, and two years later, Story moved to New York City where Burnett and Foley...
, Redbook
Redbook
Redbook is an American women's magazine published by the Hearst Corporation. It is one of the "Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines.-History:...
, Southwest Review
Southwest Review
The Southwest Review is a literary journal published quarterly, based on the Southern Methodist University campus in Dallas, Texas. It is the third oldest literary quarterly in the United States of America . The current editor-in-chief is Willard Spiegelman.The journal was formerly known as the...
, Gargoyle
Gargoyle Magazine
Gargoyle Magazine is a literary journal based in Washington, D.C.. This magazine was established in 1976 by Russell Cox, Richard Peabody, and Paul Pasquarella. By 1977, Peabody was the only remaining original editor. He continued running the journal until 1990 with several different co-editors. ...
, The Connecticut Review, the Vestal Review
Vestal Review
Vestal Review is the oldest magazine dedicated to flash fiction. It has been published continuously since March 2000. Vestal Review was featured on NPR, formerly National Public Radio, in 2004 and is a recipient of a Broome Council of the Arts grant...
, Boulevard Magenta and elsewhere. Her short story "Sleeping", originally in Vestal Review and anthologized several times, is being made into a short dramatic film by Group-Six Productions. Her first novel, Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear, was published in 1995. She was named by Granta
Granta
Granta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centers on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real." In 2007, The Observer stated, "In its blend of...
to the controversial list of 50 Best Young American Novelists in 1996. Her second novel, The Music Lesson, was published in 1999 and has since been translated into thirteen foreign languages. Her third novel, The Little Women, a Finalist for the Paterson Fiction Prize, was published 2003. All three novels have been named Notable Books by The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York...
. Her fourth novel, Triangle, which is about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City on March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city of New York and resulted in the fourth highest loss of life from an industrial accident in U.S. history...
of 1911, was published in 2006, won the 2007 Connecticut Book Award for Fiction, and was a Finalist for the Paterson Fiction Prize and the John Gardner Fiction Book Award. Triangle was also longlisted for the 2008 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is an international literary award for a work of fiction, jointly sponsored by the city of Dublin, Ireland and the company IMPAC. At €100,000 it is one of the richest literary prizes in the world...
. Her fifth novel, True Confections, was published by Shaye Areheart Books in January, 2010. Her literary essays have appeared in numerous recent anthologies. Her sixth book, a memoir called The Memory of All That: George Gershwin, Kay Swift, and My Family's Legacy of Infidelities, will be published in July 2011.
Weber was elected to a term on the board of the National Book Critics Circle
National Book Critics Circle
The National Book Critics Circle is an American tax-exempt organization for active book reviewers. Its flagship is the National Book Critics Circle Award....
, serving from 2001 to 2003.
She has written book reviews, essays, and columns for several publications, including the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
, The London Review of Books, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, New Haven Register, The New Leader, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York...
, Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
, Vogue and Washington Post Bookworld.
Weber has taught fiction writing at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, Goucher College
Goucher College
Goucher College is a private, co-educational, liberal arts college located in the northern Baltimore suburb of Towson in unincorporated Baltimore County, Maryland, on a 287 acre campus. The school has approximately 1,475 undergraduate students studying in 31 majors and six interdisciplinary...
, the Paris Writers Workshop and elsewhere, and she is currently a graduate thesis advisor in the writing program at the School of the Arts at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
.
External links
- Official site
- Katharine Weber's writing blog
- Short Story "Diamond District" in SmokeLong Quarterly
- Short Story "Sleeping" in Vestal ReviewVestal ReviewVestal Review is the oldest magazine dedicated to flash fiction. It has been published continuously since March 2000. Vestal Review was featured on NPR, formerly National Public Radio, in 2004 and is a recipient of a Broome Council of the Arts grant...
- Kay Swift site
- New York Times Review of The Little Women
- Triangle on NPR's Fresh Air segment
- The Christian Science Monitor on Triangle
- The Other Woman: Twenty-one Wives, Lovers, and Others Talk Openly About Sex, Deception, Love, and Betrayal