Daphne Merkin
Daphne Merkin is a renowned writer and cultural critic. A native New Yorker, Merkin attended The Ramaz School, Barnard College, and Columbia University. She published her first piece of criticism in Commentary when she was twenty-one and during her mid-twenties published extensively in The New Republic as well as writing a bi-monthly column for The New Leader, first on books and then on film. Before devoting herself full-time to writing, Merkin worked as a senior editor at Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, where she acquired and edited works of fiction and non-fiction, including a best-selling memoir by former Secretary of State Donald Regan.
Merkin writes about a wide array of topics, but her more prominent areas of concern include religion (Judaism in particular), family, sex, psychotherapy and depression, celebrity, women's issues, fashion, beauty, and money. She was a Contributing Writer for The New York Times Magazine, where she published several cover stories, including personal essays about her 40 years in therapy and her hospitalization for depression as well as profiles of the film director Nancy Myers, Alice Munro, Diane Keaton and Adam Phillips. She was previously a staff writer at The New Yorker for 5 years, where she was a film critic, book critic, and features writer. She was also a writer for ELLE, where she wrote profiles of Madonna as well as profiles of fashion designers, such as Stella McCartney and Dries van Noten. She was one of the first people to profile Taylor Swift, for Allure. She has contributed, and continues to contribute to numerous publications including The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, Airmail, The New York Times' "T" Style Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, Vogue, Bookforum, Travel & Leisure, and Departures.
Merkin is the author of five books: ENCHANTMENT, a novel, which won the Edward Lewis Wallant Award in 1986 for the best new work of fiction based on a Jewish theme; DREAMING OF HITLER, Passions & Provocations, a collection of essays (1997); THE FAME LUNCHES, On Wounded Icons, Money, Sex, The Brontes, And The Importance of Handbags, which was chosen as one of the best books of 2014 by The New York Times Book Review; THIS CLOSE TO HAPPY, A Memoir of Depression (2017), and 22 MINUTES OF UNCONDITIONAL LOVE, a novel (2020). ENCHANTMENT was reissued in 2020 with an introduction by Vivian Gornick.
Merkin has taught classes on writing and literature at Marymount Manhattan College, Hunter College, the 92nd St Y, and Columbia University’s MFA program. She has been interviewed for several documentary films, including one about Norman Mailer (“How to Come Alive”) and "The Red Carpet Issue" for Canal Plus and The Sundance Channel. She has regularly given lectures and participated in panel discussions at institutions that include Yale University, Columbia University, The 92nd St Y, The Philoctetes Center, The New York Times' "Times Talks" Series, The New York Studio School, and The Jewish Museum.