Elizabeth Berg began writing almost as soon as she could hold a pencil. As child, she wrote poetry, and her first submission, at age nine, to American Girl magazine, was a poem called “Dawn” which ended with the hauntingly beautiful and perceptive line “The beauty enchantment now was broke.” Astonishingly, the poem was promptly rejected, and on the day Elizabeth received the “no thanks” letter, she lay on her bed for some time, weeping. Twenty-five years later, while working as a registered nurse, she thought she’d try her luck at being published again, and submitted an essay for a contest in Parents magazine. Her luck changed with this submission, and she very soon left nursing to work full time writing magazine articles for various publications including women’s magazines, The New York Times, and National Geographic Traveler. She worked for Special Reports magazine writing essays as well as writing and performing in videoessays that were shown nationwide.
In 1994, she published her first novel, Durable Goods,
which received excellent reviews and won a American Library
Association Award for best book of the year. Her second novel,
Talk Before Sleep, was a New
York Times bestseller and shortlisted for the American
Booksellers Book of the Year award. Her novel Open
House was an Oprah book club pick in 2000. She has
now written sixteen novels, all of which were national or
New York Times bestsellers. She was awarded the New
England Booksellers Award for her body of work, has been honored
by both the Boston and Chicago Public Libraries, and was given
the Cancer Research Center’s Illuminator award for shedding
light on breast cancer. She has also written two short story
collections and two non-fiction books. Three of her novels
have become television movies. She is a popular speaker at
venues all over the country, where she performs a retrospective
of her work and attempts to answer questions such as “Where
do you get your ideas, anyway?”
Elizabeth’s novel The
Pull of the Moon struck a chord with women of all ages,
and was recently adapted for the stage. It was first seen
in conjunction with the Indianapolis Humanities Fest, where
it was enthusiastically received, then seen as a staged reading
at Circle Theatre in Forest Park for three sold-out performances.
Elizabeth is delighted that it has now landed at the 16th
Street Theater and will be in the capable hands of Ann Filmer,
who directed the play for Circle.
In the future, Elizabeth hopes to write more fiction, adapt more novels to the stage, and to write original plays. She also hopes to find the editor who rejected her all those years ago and buy him or her a drink. |
