Amanda Stern
Encyclopedia
Amanda Stern is the author
of the critically acclaimed novel The Long Haul and founder, curator and host of the well-respected and popular The Happy Ending Music and Reading Series
, for which she is best known. A permanent resident of New York City, Stern makes her living writing young adult novels under a pseudonym, as a publicity consultant to authors, a freelance writer and as an impresario for literary institutions such as The National Book Foundation, for whom she hosted the National Book Award's first ever "5 Under 35" ceremony, and The PEN American Center. Her fiction, non-fiction, and poetry has appeared in The New York Times
, The New York Times Magazine
, Filmmaker, Swink, Venus Magazine, The Believer
, St. Ann's Review, Salt Hill
, Hayden's Ferry Review
, Fivechapters.com, Joyland.ca and Spinning Jenny
.
Stern launched her series, "Happy Ending," in 2003 out of a Chinatown bar of the same name. Voted the best series by The Village Voice
, New York Magazine, NY Press and The New Yorker
, Stern's reputation as a skilled host and discerning curator began to grow, and in 2006, The New York Times Magazine
profiled her as one of ten "New Bohemians," helping to "keep downtown, NY alive." She was later featured in Page Six as one of the literary scene's rising superstars in NYC. The Happy Ending Series quickly became the go-to destination for authors with a book to promote and for singer-songwriters singing to be heard. After five years in the small Chinatown bar, the well-loved series was presented with an offer it could not refuse: a permanent stage in NYC's premiere performance venue, Joe's Pub
at the Public Theater
. The series moved there on January 7, 2009 to become the pub's first ever ongoing literary series. She has welcomed Laurie Anderson
, James Salter
, Moby
, A.M. Homes, Rick Moody
, Amy Hempel
, Mary Gaitskill
, My Brightest Diamond
and John Lurie
among many others.
As a child, Stern acted and wrote plays with a professional theater company. When she was a senior in high school, one of those plays was produced off-Broadway at the now defunct Kaufmann Theater. She was one of the lead performers. From there she turned to film and during her freshman year at college began an apprenticeship with the now defunct independent film company, Good Machine
. There she assisted the producers, Ted Hope
and James Schamus
and worked on the films of Hal Hartley
and Ang Lee
. Later she worked for Terry Gilliam
on Twelve Monkeys. In the early 90s she began working at Broadway Video
landing a job as a writer and researcher for Lorne Michaels
' produced comedy series, "This is Not a Test." She rose from behind the scenes to become the onstage co-host alongside host, Marc Maron
at Catch a Rising Star
. They welcomed such guests as the late Phil Hartmann, Conan O Brien, Jon Stewart
, Janeane Garofalo
, Todd Barry
, H. Jon Benjamin
and the Upright Citizens Brigade
. The show was the first to be streamed live on MSN. At the same time Stern founded, wrote and hosted a popular online radio show at the Pseudo Online Network called, The Cindy Something Show. Stern was then cast as an on-air host of the Lorne Michaels' owned network, Burly Bear. Stern stayed a little over one year before leaving comedy all together in order to dedicate herself full time to fiction.
She wrote her debut novel, The Long Haul
, in nine months, while cleaning the toilets at her brother's yoga school, and sold it a year later while on tour with the Cirque du Soleil
in Europe. Her novel came out in 2003 and was met with critical success. Stern launched the Happy Ending Music and Reading Series the month her novel came out. In an amusing turn of events, Stern, at 33, decided to learn how to drive in order to go on a book tour. With a couple weeks to go before driving across country, Stern failed her road test, twice, and decided, as a prank, to hold a contest for a tour driver. Publishers' Weekly picked up the story and 45 people applied to drive her across country. The winner, Jenn McKee, won and drove Stern across America to promote her novel.
On day 4 they got into an accident and totaled the car.
Her debut novel, The Long Haul, released by Soft Skull Press
can be found in bookstores nationwide. She is at work on her next novel and a series of Children's books. She blogs about her series and culture at her blog, Lessons in Culture. Lessons in Curating. and maintains a website at http://www.amandastern.com Stern has held several residencies at Yaddo and MacDowell. She currently lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn which is also home to the novelists Colson Whitehead
, Jennifer Egan
and Jhumpa Lahiri.
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
of the critically acclaimed novel The Long Haul and founder, curator and host of the well-respected and popular The Happy Ending Music and Reading Series
The Happy Ending Music and Reading Series
The Happy Ending Music and Reading Series is a semimonthly performing arts series founded and hosted by Amanda Stern at the Happy Ending Bar in Chinatown, NYC on September 3, 2003. Since its inception, the Happy Ending Music and Reading Series has occurred every other Wednesday, bringing together...
, for which she is best known. A permanent resident of New York City, Stern makes her living writing young adult novels under a pseudonym, as a publicity consultant to authors, a freelance writer and as an impresario for literary institutions such as The National Book Foundation, for whom she hosted the National Book Award's first ever "5 Under 35" ceremony, and The PEN American Center. Her fiction, non-fiction, and poetry has appeared in 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 Magazine
The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors...
, Filmmaker, Swink, Venus Magazine, The Believer
The Believer (magazine)
The Believer is a United States literary magazine that also covers other arts and general culture. Founded and designed in 2003 by the writer and publisher Dave Eggers, it is edited by Vendela Vida, Heidi Julavits and Ed Park...
, St. Ann's Review, Salt Hill
Salt Hill
Salt Hill is a district within the unitary authority of Slough in Berkshire in the south of England, close to London. Before 1974, Salt Hill was part of Buckinghamshire...
, Hayden's Ferry Review
Hayden's Ferry Review
Hayden's Ferry Review is a well-regarded internationally distributed American literary magazine, published semi-annually by Arizona State University. Founded in 1986, the Review is headquartered in the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at ASU...
, Fivechapters.com, Joyland.ca and Spinning Jenny
Spinning jenny
The spinning jenny is a multi-spool spinning frame. It was invented c. 1764 by James Hargreaves in Stanhill, Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire in England. The device reduced the amount of work needed to produce yarn, with a worker able to work eight or more spools at once. This grew to 120 as technology...
.
Stern launched her series, "Happy Ending," in 2003 out of a Chinatown bar of the same name. Voted the best series by The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
, New York Magazine, NY Press and The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, Stern's reputation as a skilled host and discerning curator began to grow, and in 2006, The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors...
profiled her as one of ten "New Bohemians," helping to "keep downtown, NY alive." She was later featured in Page Six as one of the literary scene's rising superstars in NYC. The Happy Ending Series quickly became the go-to destination for authors with a book to promote and for singer-songwriters singing to be heard. After five years in the small Chinatown bar, the well-loved series was presented with an offer it could not refuse: a permanent stage in NYC's premiere performance venue, Joe's Pub
Joe's Pub
Joe's Pub at Public Theater is a nightclub that hosts live performances regularly. The venue, which is a non-profit operation, is located at 425 Lafayette Street near Astor Place in Manhattan, New York City...
at the Public Theater
Public Theater
The Public Theater is a New York City arts organization founded as The Shakespeare Workshop in 1954 by Joseph Papp, with the intention of showcasing the works of up-and-coming playwrights and performers. It is headquartered at 425 Lafayette Street in the former Astor Library in the East Village...
. The series moved there on January 7, 2009 to become the pub's first ever ongoing literary series. She has welcomed Laurie Anderson
Laurie Anderson
Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson is an American experimental performance artist, composer and musician who plays violin and keyboards and sings in a variety of experimental music and art rock styles. Initially trained as a sculptor, Anderson did her first performance-art piece in the late 1960s...
, James Salter
James Salter
James Salter is an American novelist and short-story writer. Once a career officer and pilot in the United States Air Force, he abandoned the military profession in 1957 after successful publication of his first novel, The Hunters.After a brief career at film writing and film directing, Salter...
, Moby
Moby
Richard Melville Hall , better known by his stage name Moby, is an American musician, DJ, and photographer. He is known mainly for his sample-based electronic music and his outspoken liberal political views, including his support of veganism and animal rights.Moby gained attention in the early...
, A.M. Homes, Rick Moody
Rick Moody
Rick Moody is an American novelist and short story writer best known for the 1994 novel The Ice Storm, a chronicle of the dissolution of two suburban Connecticut families over Thanksgiving weekend in 1973, which brought widespread acclaim, became a bestseller, and was made into a feature film of...
, Amy Hempel
Amy Hempel
Amy Hempel is an American short story writer, journalist, and university professor at Brooklyn College.-Life:Hempel was born in Chicago, Illinois...
, Mary Gaitskill
Mary Gaitskill
Mary Gaitskill is an American author of essays, short stories and novels. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Esquire, The Best American Short Stories , and The O. Henry Prize Stories .-Life:Gaitskill was born in Lexington, Kentucky...
, My Brightest Diamond
My Brightest Diamond
My Brightest Diamond is the project of singer–songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Shara Worden. The band has released two studio albums, 2006's Bring Me the Workhorse and 2008's A Thousand Shark's Teeth, along with a remix album Tear It Down and a download-only release through iTunes...
and John Lurie
John Lurie
John Lurie is an American actor, musician, painter and producer. He is co-founder of The Lounge Lizards, a jazz ensemble. Lurie has acted in 19 films including Stranger than Paradise and Down by Law, composed and performed music for 20 television and film works, and he produced and starred in...
among many others.
As a child, Stern acted and wrote plays with a professional theater company. When she was a senior in high school, one of those plays was produced off-Broadway at the now defunct Kaufmann Theater. She was one of the lead performers. From there she turned to film and during her freshman year at college began an apprenticeship with the now defunct independent film company, Good Machine
Good Machine
Good Machine was an independent film production, film distribution, and foreign sales company started in the early 1990s by its co-founders and producers, Ted Hope and James Schamus. David Linde joined in the late 90s to start the international sales company...
. There she assisted the producers, Ted Hope
Ted Hope
Ted Hope is an American independent film producer based in New York City.As the American Indie wave hit in the early 90’s, Ted was among the first producers to emerge from the pack, and today remains one of the few consistently delivering vital and exciting new work...
and James Schamus
James Schamus
James Schamus is an award-winning screenwriter The Ice Storm and producer Brokeback Mountain, and is CEO of Focus Features, the motion picture production, financing, and worldwide distribution company whose films have included Lost in Translation, Milk, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The...
and worked on the films of Hal Hartley
Hal Hartley
Hal Hartley is an American film director, screenwriter, producer composer, who became a key figure in the American independent film movement of the 1980s and 1990s...
and Ang Lee
Ang Lee
Ang Lee is a Taiwanese film director. Lee has directed a diverse set of films such as Eat Drink Man Woman , Sense and Sensibility , Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon , Hulk , and Brokeback Mountain , for which he won an Academy...
. Later she worked for Terry Gilliam
Terry Gilliam
Terrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam is also known for directing several films, including Brazil , The Adventures of Baron Munchausen , The Fisher King , and 12 Monkeys...
on Twelve Monkeys. In the early 90s she began working at Broadway Video
Broadway Video
Broadway Video is a media production and distribution company located within the Brill Building on Broadway, New York, United States. Founded in 1979 as a production house tasked with post-production work on Saturday Night Live, Broadway Video has since become one of the largest independent...
landing a job as a writer and researcher for Lorne Michaels
Lorne Michaels
Lorne Michaels, CM is a Canadian-American television producer, writer, and comedian best known for creating and producing Saturday Night Live and producing the various film and TV projects that spun off from it.-Early life:...
' produced comedy series, "This is Not a Test." She rose from behind the scenes to become the onstage co-host alongside host, Marc Maron
Marc Maron
Marc Maron is an American stand-up comedian and podcast host.He has been host of The Marc Maron Show, and co-host of both Morning Sedition, and Breakroom Live, all politically-oriented shows, produced under the auspices of Air America Media. He was also the host of Comedy Central's Short Attention...
at Catch a Rising Star
Catch a Rising Star
Catch a Rising Star is a chain of comedy clubs, founded in New York City in December 1972 and owned by Rick Newman. It has since spread to other areas, such as Las Vegas and New Jersey....
. They welcomed such guests as the late Phil Hartmann, Conan O Brien, Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart is an American political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian...
, Janeane Garofalo
Janeane Garofalo
Janeane Garofalo is an American stand-up comedian, actress, political activist and writer. She is the former co-host on the now defunct Air America Radio's The Majority Report. Garofalo continues to circulate regularly within New York City's local comedy and performance art scene.-Early...
, Todd Barry
Todd Barry
-Biography:Barry was born in The Bronx, New York, and grew up in Florida. In 1999, his Comedy Central Presents aired. He wrote, directed and starred in the short film Borrowing Saffron , which co-starred H. Jon Benjamin. He has made a variety of guest appearances on shows like Dr...
, H. Jon Benjamin
H. Jon Benjamin
Henry Jon Benjamin , known professionally as H. Jon Benjamin and Jon Benjamin, is an American actor, comedian and writer best known for his voice-over roles as Jason and Coach McGuirk on Home Movies, Ben on Dr...
and the Upright Citizens Brigade
Upright Citizens Brigade
The Upright Citizens Brigade is an improvisational comedy and sketch comedy group that emerged from Chicago's ImprovOlympic in 1990. The most recent incarnation consists of Matt Besser, Amy Poehler, Ian Roberts, and Matt Walsh...
. The show was the first to be streamed live on MSN. At the same time Stern founded, wrote and hosted a popular online radio show at the Pseudo Online Network called, The Cindy Something Show. Stern was then cast as an on-air host of the Lorne Michaels' owned network, Burly Bear. Stern stayed a little over one year before leaving comedy all together in order to dedicate herself full time to fiction.
She wrote her debut novel, The Long Haul
The Long Haul
The Long Haul is a 1938 novel by A. I. Bezzerides that depicts the lives of truckers. Its central characters are Nick & Paul Benay, who transport fruit and other perishable goods between Northern and Southern California. It was adapted into the film They Drive by Night, starring George Raft and...
, in nine months, while cleaning the toilets at her brother's yoga school, and sold it a year later while on tour with the Cirque du Soleil
Cirque du Soleil
Cirque du Soleil , is a Canadian entertainment company, self-described as a "dramatic mix of circus arts and street entertainment." Based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and located in the inner-city area of Saint-Michel, it was founded in Baie-Saint-Paul in 1984 by two former street performers, Guy...
in Europe. Her novel came out in 2003 and was met with critical success. Stern launched the Happy Ending Music and Reading Series the month her novel came out. In an amusing turn of events, Stern, at 33, decided to learn how to drive in order to go on a book tour. With a couple weeks to go before driving across country, Stern failed her road test, twice, and decided, as a prank, to hold a contest for a tour driver. Publishers' Weekly picked up the story and 45 people applied to drive her across country. The winner, Jenn McKee, won and drove Stern across America to promote her novel.
On day 4 they got into an accident and totaled the car.
Her debut novel, The Long Haul, released by Soft Skull Press
Soft Skull Press
Soft Skull Press is an independent publisher founded by Sander Hicks in 1992, and run by Richard Eoin Nash from 2001 to 2009. In 2007, Nash sold Soft Skull to Counterpoint LLC, where it continues to function as a division of the press...
can be found in bookstores nationwide. She is at work on her next novel and a series of Children's books. She blogs about her series and culture at her blog, Lessons in Culture. Lessons in Curating. and maintains a website at http://www.amandastern.com Stern has held several residencies at Yaddo and MacDowell. She currently lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn which is also home to the novelists Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead is a New York-based novelist. He is best known as the author of the 2001 novel John Henry Days. In 2002, he received a MacArthur Fellowship.-Early life:...
, Jennifer Egan
Jennifer Egan
Jennifer Egan is an American novelist and short story writer who lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Egan's novel A Visit From the Goon Squad won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction....
and Jhumpa Lahiri.