Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Taffy Brodesser-Akner (born Stephanie Akner) is an American journalist and author. She has worked freelance and as a contributor for GQ and The New York Times, where she is now a staff writer. Her profiles of celebrities have won her the New York Press Club Award and Mirror Award. Her first novel, Fleishman Is in Trouble, achieved widespread success.
Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Journalist
2
Personal life[edit]
Born Stephanie Akner, Brodesser-Akner received the nickname "Taffy" at a young age and continued using it professionally.[1] She grew up in Brooklyn, New York,[2] in an Orthodox Jewish household.[3] She attended New York University.
She married Claude Brodesser in 2006.[2] Brodesser converted to Judaism,[2] a process that eventually led Akner to evaluate and reinforce her own observance of Jewish customs.[4] After marrying, both took hyphenated last names.[1] They have two children.[5]
Career[edit]
Journalism[edit]
Brodesser-Akner's first major journalism job was at Soap Opera Weekly, a job she held until her role was eliminated due to layoffs in June 2001.[6] She also wrote for Mediabistro[7] 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] Her freelance articles often focused on celebrity profiles, several of which went viral.[9] In 2014, she became a contributing writer to both The New York Times and GQ.[7] In 2017, she became a full-time staff writer for The New York Times.[9]
In 2014, Brodesser-Akner won a New York Press Club Award for entertainment news in a magazine for her story about actress Gaby Hoffmann.[10] She won two New York Press Club awards in 2015, for her profiles of Damon Lindelof and Britney Spears.[11] The same year, Brodesser-Akner was nominated for a Mirror Award for her profile of Joey Soloway,[12] and she won the award in 2016 for her profile of broadcaster Don Lemon.[13]
Fiction and television[edit]
Her first novel, Fleishman Is in Trouble, was published in June 2019 by Random House in the US[14][15] and by Wildfire in the UK.[16] The novel was selected for the longlist for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2020.[17] Brodesser-Akner has adapted the novel as a TV miniseries, which debuted on Hulu on November 17, 2022.[18] She received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie nomination for her work.
