Some things about me.
SHORT BIO
Amanda Stern is the author of The Long Haul and eleven books for children written under the pseudonyms AJ Stern and Fiona Rosenbloom. In 2003, she founded the legendary Happy Ending Music and Reading Series, which required creative artists to take risks on stage. The multi-disciplinary series became the gold standard for literary events; many of today’s series are (knowingly and unknowingly) based on Happy Ending’s model. It was produced at Joe’s Pub and later at Symphony Space. The series ended in 2018. Her most recent book is Little Panic, a memoir about growing up with an undiagnosed panic disorder in Etan Patz era Greenwich Village is out now from Grand Central Publishing. Amanda is a mental health advocate, speaker, and advisory board member for Bring Change to Mind. As a writer, she’s required to live in Brooklyn, which she does, with her daughter Busy, who also happens to be a dog.
LONG BIO
Amanda Stern is a fourth-generation native of Manhattan; raised without an accent. Her work has appeared in the New York Times; the New York Times Magazine; the New York Times Book Review; Filmmaker, The Believer, McSweeneys, Salon, Blackbook, St. Ann’s Review, Post Road, and others. Her personal essays have been included in several anthologies: Love is a Four-Letter Word, The Marijuana Chronicles, Women in Clothes, the anthology A Velocity of Being edited by Maria Popova, and her Believer interview with Laurie Anderson was included in Confidence, or the Appearance of Confidence: The Best of the Believer Music Interviews, 2014.
Her first novel The Long Haul (Soft Skull Press) was published in 2003. Of her metaphors, the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, “they’re so fresh, they’re almost jarring.”
Concurrent with the publication of The Long Haul, she launched The Happy Ending Music and Reading Series as an antidote to her anxiety. The series, designed around public risks, became a critical success, and its inventive model paved the way for the proliferation of music and reading series created in its wake. Happy Ending had permanent homes at Joe’s Pub in NYC and Symphony Space. She produced a special event in Israel with Etgar Keret, Colum McCann, and Gary Shteyngart. By the time the series ended officially in June 2018, Amanda had produced over 250 shows and welcomed 700 creative artists, from Nelly Reifler to Colson Whitehead.
From 2020-2021 she produced and hosted the popular podcast BOOKABLE.
She spent her 20s working in film–for Ang Lee, Terry Gilliam, and Gregg Araki, but primarily for Ted Hope and James Schamus at the famed (and not forgotten) Good Machine, where she worked closely with Hal Hartley. After that she became an accidental comic, co-hosting the Lorne Michaels series, “This is Not a Test“ with host Marc Maron at “Catch A Rising Star.” She was the on-air host of a cable network owned by Lorne Michaels, the name of which is so mortifying she can’t even bring herself to tell me, the fake person pretending to write “her” bio. Later, in the music world, she worked for David Byrne, curating a narrative section of The Talking Heads Box Set, “Once In A Lifetime.”
Stern hosts, talks, moderates, and curates for those who pay her. Some of these people and places are the National Book Awards ceremony, “5 Under 35;” the BBC; Soundcheck; the MacDowell Colony; Brooklyn Public Library’s Gala with Paul Auster, and at Powerhouse Arena. She’s also led storytelling workshops for Moleskine, Cirque du Soleil, and Proctor & Gamble.
She’s published thirteen books, nine for children (the Frankly, Frannie, series for Penguin under the name, A.J. Stern), two for young adults (You’re So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah and its sequel, under the name, Fiona Rosenbloom), and one novel of literary fiction, The Long Haul, under her real name. Her most recent book is a memoir called Little Panic, which came out on June 19, 2018, from Grand Central. She’s held several fellowships at both The MacDowell Colony (once as the Philip Morris Company Fellow) and at Yaddo. In 2012 she was a NYFA fiction fellow, and she was a Barnes and Noble Discover Pick in 2018 for her memoir, Little Panic.
Because she is a writer, she is legally obligated to live in Brooklyn. She has five lines, appears in two scenes, and is on screen for a total of seven seconds in Hal Hartley‘s latest movie, MEANWHILE, starring DJ Mendel.
BIO IN PORTUGUESE
Amanda Stern nasceu e foi criada no Greenwich Village, em Nova York. Seus artigos e contos foram publicados em diversas revistas e sites literarios americanos e europeus. Por v‡rios anos, Amanda tambiem trabalhou como assistente de diretores de cinema como Terry Gilliam, Hal Harley, Ang Lee, Ted Hope e James Schamus.