Meredith Maran

Silver Lake

Journalist at Freelance

Live-tweeting #LaLaLife since 2012.

Articles

‘Woodworking’ is a funny, convincing takedown of American prejudice

1 month ago | spokesman.com | Meredith Maran

When my fiancée, Denise, declared themself gender nonbinary and started using they/them pronouns, I didn’t get it. In fact, I fought it. I used grammar, biology, any stick I could grab to argue that humans come in only two genders – thereby proving two disturbing revelations of the 2024 election. One, the power of transphobia. It worked for Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans, who spent $215 million on anti-trans ads ahead of the election.
Review | ‘Woodworking’ is a funny, convincing takedown of American prejudice

1 month ago | washingtonpost.com | Meredith Maran

When my fiancée, Denise, declared themself gender nonbinary and started using they/them pronouns, I didn’t get it. In fact, I fought it. I used grammar, biology, any stick I could grab to argue that humans come in only two genders — thereby proving two disturbing revelations of the 2024 election. One, the power of transphobia. It worked for Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans, who spent $215 million on anti-trans ads ahead of the election.
A (Restorative) Quickie in Cancun

2 months ago | pasadenamag.com | Meredith Maran

When I was invited to visit and write about the wellness program at the Grand Hyatt Resort in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, I asked only two questions. “Did you say ‘wellness?’” And, “Can I bring my partner, please?”Denise and I were so overdue. Three years earlier, Denise (who uses they/them pronouns) had suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury in a bike accident; we’d been living with their uncertain prognosis ever since.
In 'Tiny Threads,' Lilliam Rivera takes on the brutality of capitalism

Sep 18, 2024 | latimes.com | Meredith Maran

Book Review Tiny Threads By Lilliam RiveraDel Rey Books: 256 pages, $26 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. When I was shopping for a Mini Cooper last year, I headed to Mini of Downtown Los Angeles, figuring it would be 15 or 20 minutes from my Silver Lake home. Forty-five minutes later, I passed a sign that read, “City of Vernon, California. Exclusively industrial.
Weaving the personal and the political during the tumultuous 1970s

May 28, 2024 | latimes.com | Meredith Maran

Book Review 1974 By Francine Prose Harper: 272 pages, $27.99If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.
Can a Luxury Wellness Retreat Make Me Well Again?

May 23, 2024 | fodors.com | Meredith Maran

Finding hope and healing at a luxury wellness retreat. My year of Extreme Crisis Caregiving started with my fiancée’s near-fatal mountain bike accident, which left Denise (who’s gender nonbinary, and uses they/them pronouns) with a traumatic brain injury, from which they (and we) are still recovering. Then, my 95-year-old mom, who lives 300 miles from my Los Angeles home, fell and broke her wrist.
Against All Odds, a Civil Conversation

May 7, 2024 | pasadenamag.com | Meredith Maran

A few weeks after the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on Israel, it occurred to me I hadn’t heard from my friend Izzy since he left the Silver Lake bungalow next to mine, off on his next adventure. In 2009, as a 19-year-old enlistee in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Izzy lost his left arm in a Gaza rocket attack. Then he re-enlisted and wrote a book about it: Disarmed: Unconventional Lessons from the World's Only One-Armed Special Forces Sharpshooter.
The independent publisher making a business of celebrity book imprints

Apr 24, 2024 | latimes.com | Meredith Maran

In recent decades, corporate consolidation of the book industry has shrunk the number of and the visions of publishing houses, concentrating power at the top of the remaining Big Five, prioritizing profitability over cultural contribution. Countering that contraction, the 2020 murder of George Floyd has triggered long-overdue inclusionary change in America, and in American book publishing.
A mother tries to exercise choice in the face of class struggles and incarceration

Apr 15, 2024 | latimes.com | Meredith Maran

Book Review Days of Wonder By Caroline LeavittAlgonquin: 320 pages, $29If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores I’ve never met Caroline Leavitt, but I think of her as a comrade — a sister-soldier in the army of American writers facing down an increasingly ruthless publishing industry. Some authors adopt an “every human for themself” approach to the competition for book deals, visibility and sales.
Review | The mass appeal of Anne Lamott

Apr 6, 2024 | washingtonpost.com | Meredith Maran

The title of Anne Lamott’s 20th book is also an apt descriptor of the author’s extraordinary four-decade career. “Somehow,”after publishing four quiet, quirky Northern California novels between 1980 and 1989, Lamott sidestepped the fate of many authors with modest sales: beloved by few, unknown to most, destined to fade into literary oblivion. Instead, Lamott changed her genre, and her life.