Anna Quindlen

Bestselling Author | Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist

Gender

Social Media

Social Commentary

Wellness & Mental Health

Anna Quindlen is a bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and social critic who has written about every aspect of culture, from work life balance and education to healthcare, philanthropy and social justice and was named one of the “100 Outstanding Journalists in the United States in the Last 100 Years.” In 2022, she released Write For Your Life, a call to pick up a pen and find yourself. The New York Times Book Review called Anna “one of our most astute chroniclers of modern life."

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She is the author of nine novels: Object Lessons, One True Thing, Black and Blue, Blessings, Rise and Shine, Every Last One, Still Life with Bread Crumbs, Miller’s Valley, and Alternate Side. Her memoir Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, published in 2012, was a #1 New York Times bestseller. Her book A Short Guide to a Happy Life has sold more than a million copies. Her most recent books are Nanaville: Adventures in Grandparenting and Write For Your Life. While a columnist at the New York Times she won the Pulitzer Prize and published two collections, Living Out Loud and Thinking Out Loud. Her Newsweek columns were collected in Loud and Clear.

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Topics

Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake

You’d never know it, hearing about hip replacements and sagging skin, but survey after survey shows that older people are happier with their daily lives than their younger counterparts. And of course there are more of them; while the average life expectancy a hundred years ago was 56, today it’s nearly 80. That’s changed so much, in the way we work, live, think of ourselves and of the human condition. Is 70 the new 50, or is it just a brand new 70, with new rules and attitudes? And how can we take advantage of that change?

Being Human: The Challenge for Health Care

It is a conundrum, that the better we have gotten at tackling many illnesses and conditions, the farther doctors and nurses have sometimes moved away from the people who have them. Transplanting hearts is an occasional miracle, but touching hearts should be done every day. Looking at a patient chart on the screen of a tablet doesn’t come close to looking a person in the eye. The same technology that enables us an unprecedented view inside the human body sometimes distances health care professionals from the spirit within that body. But both doctors and patients will benefit if we can change that, and the personal touch in other professions can show us how.

How Reading and Writing will Ensure our Democracy

It’s no accident that Hitler ordered book burnings and enslaved men and women were denied literacy as well as freedom. Reading and writing break down the walls between people and bring down the big lies of demagoguery. That’s why a literate United States is a more tolerant and democratic United States, and why a thirst for words, for consuming and using them, may be the greatest legacy we hand down to our kids.

Why Media Matters

Here’s a counterintuitive view — although the entire landscape of newspapers, magazines and television has changed, and many feel changed for the worse, journo veteran Quindlen argues that because of the internet it is easier to be well-informed now than at any time in history. The challenge is to learn how to be our own aggregators, to not only figure out a useful media diet but to assess what’s nourishing and what’s junk food.

Women in the 21st Century: The Balancing Act

The greatest social revolution of our lifetime has been the changing status of women in America and around the world. They now make-up more than half of our workforce, and dominate medical, law and journalism schools. So why has it been so hard for women to find balance between old roles and new ones? Why are so many of us feeling like there’s been great change, but not change enough? And where do men fit in?

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