Taffy Brodesser-Akner
American journalist and author
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Taffy Brodesser-Akner (born Stephanie Akner) is an American journalist and author. She has worked freelance and as a contributor to GQ[2] and The New York Times,[3] where she is now a staff writer.[4] Her profiles of celebrities have won her the New York Press Club Award[5] and Mirror Award.[6] She is the author of novels Long Island Compromise and Fleishman Is in Trouble. The latter was made into a seven-time Emmy-nominated miniseries, which she also wrote.
1975 or 1976 (age 50–51)[1]
Taffy Brodesser-Akner | |
|---|---|
| Born | Stephanie Akner 1975 or 1976 (age 50–51)[1] New York City, New York, United States |
| Education | New York University |
| Occupation | Journalist |
| Spouse |
Claude Brodesser-Akner
(m. 2006) |
| Children | 2 |
| Website | taffyakner |
Career
Journalism
Brodesser-Akner's first major journalism job was at Soap Opera Weekly, a job she held until it was eliminated due to layoffs in 2001.[7] She also wrote for Mediabistro[2] and did freelance pieces for magazines including ESPN The Magazine, GQ, and Texas Monthly. The Columbia Journalism Review called her "one of the nation's most successful freelance writers."[8] Many of her freelance articles were celebrity profiles, several of which went viral.[4] In 2014, she became a contributing writer to both The New York Times and GQ,[2] and won a New York Press Club award for entertainment news in a magazine for her story about actress Gaby Hoffmann.[5] She won two New York Press Club awards in 2015, for her profiles of Damon Lindelof and Britney Spears.[9] The same year, Brodesser-Akner was nominated for a Mirror Award for her profile of Joey Soloway,[10] and in 2016 she won the award for her profile of broadcaster Don Lemon.[6] In 2017, she became a full-time staff writer at The New York Times.[4]
Fiction and television
Her first novel, Fleishman Is in Trouble, was published in 2019 by Random House in the US[11][12] and by Wildfire in the UK.[13] The novel was longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2020.[14] Brodesser-Akner adapted the novel as a TV miniseries, which debuted on Hulu on November 17, 2022.[15] In 2023, she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.[16] Her second novel, Long Island Compromise, was published in 2024 by Random House in the US[17] and by Wildfire in the UK.[18][19]
Personal life
Born Stephanie Akner, Brodesser-Akner received the nickname "Taffy" at a young age and continued using it professionally.[20] She grew up in Brooklyn, New York,[1] in an Orthodox Jewish household.[3] She attended New York University.[21]
She married Claude Brodesser in 2006.[1] Brodesser converted to Judaism,[1] a process that eventually led Akner to evaluate and reinforce her own observance of Jewish customs.[22] After marrying, both took hyphenated last names.[20] They have two children.[23] She wrote that as a grandchild of Holocaust survivors, she was particularly alarmed when her son was called an antisemitic slur on the basketball court in Riverside Park, and her other son had a caricature done in Times Square that evoked antisemitic tropes.[24]
Bibliography
- Fleishman is in Trouble (2019, Random House)
- Long Island Compromise (2024, Random House)
