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Table of Contents
Joan Didion is an American writer known for her celebrated essays and sociopolitical commentaries during the 1960s and 1970s. She is also a novelist and co-wrote a number of screenplays with her husband.
See the fact file below for more information on the Joan Didion or alternatively, you can download our 24-page Joan Didion worksheet pack to utilise within the classroom or home environment.
Key Facts & Information
EARLY LIFE
- The daughter of Frank Reese and Eduene Jerrett Didion, Joan Didion was born on December 5, 1934, in Sacramento, California.
- Didion began writing at the age of five.
- According to her, she was a shy child who loved reading books.
- Acting and public speaking became her means to overcome her social anxiety.
EDUCATION
- Joan Didion attended kindergarten and first grade but beyond that, she did not receive a traditional education.
- She did not attend school regularly because her family relocated constantly due to her father’s job in the Army Air Corps during World War II.
- In her 2003 memoir Where I Was From, she wrote that her family’s constant relocation made her feel like a perpetual outsider.
- The family ultimately returned to Sacramento and settled in California.
- In 1956, Didion received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of California, Berkeley.
- During her senior year in college, she won first place in the “Prix de Paris”, an annual essay contest sponsored by Vogue magazine.
- In the same year as her graduation, she was awarded a job as a research assistant at Vogue.
WORK IN NEW YORK
- After college, Didion moved to New York and worked as a promotional copywriter at Vogue, then later as an associate editor.
- She worked for Vogue from 1956 to 1963.
- While at Vogue, she also began contributing film and book reviews to National Review and Mademoiselle.
- While in New York, she wrote her first novel, Run, River, which was published in 1963.
- A year later, Didion married writer John Gregory Dunne who helped her edit her memoir.
- In 1964, the newlyweds moved back to California, Didion’s home state.
POST-VOGUE WRITING CAREER AND NOTABLE WORKS
- Between 1963 and 1969, Didion wrote regularly for the Saturday Evening Post. She also wrote feature articles for the National Review, Holiday, and Harper’s Magazine.
- In 1968, she published her first non-fiction book, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, which was a collection of magazine articles and essays about her experiences in California in the 1960s.
- Also in 1968, she became a contributing editor of Life magazine.
- In 1970, Didion’s novel Play It as It Lays was published. The novel was included in TIME Magazine’s “100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005”.
- Between 1971 and 1977, Didion concentrated on writing fiction, with the exception of co-writing screenplays with her husband.
- In 1979, she published The White Album, another collection of essays that previously appeared in Life, Esquire, The Saturday Evening Post, The New York Times and The New York Review of Books.
- Her notable novels include A Book of Common Prayer (1977), Democracy (1984), and The Last Thing He Wanted (1996).
- Some of the screenplays she co-wrote with her husband are Panic in Needle Park (1971), Play It as It Lays (1972; an adaptation of her novel), and True Confessions (1981).
- Didion’s ability to write eloquently from a wide variety of perspectives is one of the reasons why she established herself as a notable and prolific writer.
- Didion effectively recounted personal observations of the war-torn country El Salvador in her 1982 book Salvador.
- In 1987, her book Miami was published, which explored the complexities of a city whose population was 56 percent Cuban by the late 1980s.
- In 1991, she wrote an article on the New York Review of Books magazine, where she suggested the wrongful conviction of the Central Park Five largely due to racial overtones in a narrative that clouded the court’s judgment.
- In 2004, Didion began writing a memoir entitled The Year of Magical Thinking, in which she recounted the year following the death of her husband. The book was published in 2005.
- The Year of Magical Thinking, won a National Book Award, and Didion adapted it for the stage in 2007.
- In 2011, her memoir Blue Nights was published, an account of Didion attempting to come to terms with the death of her daughter and her husband.
PERSONAL LIFE
- In the title essay of The White Album, Didion wrote about a nervous breakdown she experienced in the summer of 1968 which led to her diagnosis of vertigo and nausea.
- In 1972, she was also diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
- In December 2003, Didion’s husband died from a heart attack, while their daughter, Quintana, was comatose with septic shock resulting from pneumonia.
- Quintana died of acute pancreatitis on August 26, 2005.
- Didion further discussed the deaths of her husband and daughter in a film documentary directed by her nephew Griffin Dunne entitled “Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold”.
Joan Didion Worksheets
This is a fantastic bundle which includes everything you need to know about Joan Didion across 24 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use Joan Didion worksheets that are perfect for teaching students about Joan Didion who is an American writer known for her celebrated essays and sociopolitical commentaries during the 1960s and 1970s. She is also a novelist and co-wrote a number of screenplays with her husband.
Complete List Of Included Worksheets
- Joan Didion Facts
- Childhood Fast Facts
- Timeline of Events
- Yes or No Questions
- Fill in the Titles
- Book Designer
- Brief Summaries
- Personal Essay
- Book Quotes
- Joan’s Favorites
- Her Impact
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