Jeanne Darst
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jeanne Darst | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Doris Jeanne Darst |
| Education | SUNY Purchase |
| Occupation | Author |
Jeanne Darst is an American author. She is a regular contributor to This American Life and has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, and Vogue.[1] Her memoir, Fiction Ruined My Family, was published in October 2011 by Riverhead Books.
The youngest of four girls, Darst was born in St. Louis, Missouri and moved to Stony Hill Farm in Amagansett, New York when she was 7 so that her father, a newspaperman and writer for Harper's Magazine, The Nation, and The New York Times, could write his first novel. The family planned to return to Missouri after one year. The family did not move back to St. Louis, however, they moved to Bronxville, where Darst attended Bronxville High School. She received her B.A. at SUNY Purchase where she began to write and perform her plays.[2]
On her father's side was a family of writers. Her grandmother, Katharine Darst, was a writer for the St. Louis Globe Democrat, with a daily column called "Here and There" and a Sunday column called "The Back Seat Driver". She also had a radio show on KMOX, a CBS affiliate, in the 1940s. Her grandfather, James Darst, was a reporter for the St. Louis Globe Democrat as well as director of Fox Movietone News. Darst's first cousin is Thomas French, Pulitzer Prize -winning journalist for the St. Petersburg Times.
Her great uncle was Joseph Darst, mayor of St. Louis from 1949–1953.[3] Darst's mother, Doris Jeanne Gissy, was, at age 14, the youngest person to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Gissy appeared on the magazine's cover in August 1956 for horse riding along with her sister Ruth Gissy.