CANCELED: Elizabeth Gilbert

press release: Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir Eat Pray Love has been called “a generation’s instruction manual” (The Toronto Sun). Exploding onto the scene in 2006, the bestseller famously chronicled the year Gilbert spent traveling the world after a shattering divorce. Translated into more than 30 languages, Eat Pray Love has sold over ten million copies worldwide. The book, “fueled by a mix of intelligence, wit, and colloquial exuberance that is close to irresistible” (The New York Times Book Review), catapulted its author from respected but little-recognized writer to a woman Oprah Winfrey has called a “rock star author.”

Educated at New York University, Elizabeth Gilbert hails from an ascetic childhood in rural Connecticut. Fearless reporting skills and an abiding appreciation for working-class values have colored her writing from the beginning. Meanwhile, a persistent longing to understand the world and her place in it have made her not merely a writer but an explorer. Gilbert worked in a Philadelphia diner, on a western ranch, and in a New York City bar to scrape together the funds to travel: “to create experiences to write about, gather landscapes and voices.” Gilbert’s writing was published in Harper’s Bazaar, Spin, and The New York Times Magazine. Her work in Spin caught the attention of editors at GQ, and she became a stalwart at that publication, producing vivid, provocative pieces that soon grew into books and even a film: 2000’s Coyote Ugly. Gilbert was a finalist for the National Magazine Award, and her work was anthologized in Best American Writing 2001.

Gilbert’s first book, a wide-ranging collection of short fiction called Pilgrims, was a New York Times Most Notable Book and won a Ploughshares prize, among other honors. Her first novel, Stern Men, won the Kate Chopin Award in 2001. Her third book, The Last American Man, which compellingly explores America’s long-standing intrigue with the pioneer lifestyle, was a finalist for the National Book Award.

With Eat Pray Love, Gilbert attracted an adoring international audience. Thanks to its courage and humor, Eat Pray Love became the kind of book that people keep on their nightstands for years, pages flagged and passages highlighted. In 2010, Eat Pray Love was made into a feature film starring Julia Roberts and Javier Bardem—an experience Gilbert has called “surreal,” “amazing,” and “touching.”

In Committed: A Love Story, the breathlessly anticipated followup to Eat Pray Love, Gilbert tells the story of her unexpected plunge into second marriage—this time to Felipe, the man with whom she fell in love at the end of Eat Pray Love. Part memoir, part meditation on marriage as a sociohistorical institution, Committed is rich with Gilbert’s trademark humor, sparkling prose, and intimate voice.

Named one of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine, NPR, and Time, Gilbert’s novel The Signature of All Things is a sweeping story of botany, exploration, and desire that spans much of the nineteenth century. Gilbert’s first novel in over a decade, it was described by O, The Oprah Magazine as “the novel of a lifetime.” The Washington Post called it “that rare literary achievement: a big, panoramic novel about life and love that captures the idiom and tenor of its age.”

In 2019, she’ll return to fiction with City of Girls, a love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of a 95-year-old woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret, City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love.

In the decade since Eat Pray Love, people around the world have sought Gilbert’s advice on how to lead a bold and inspired life, and she has dedicated herself to exploring the mysteries of courage and creativity. Out of this period of introspection comes Gilbert’s brilliant nonfiction treatise, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. In this book, she digs deep into her own generative process to share her wisdom and unique perspective on creativity.

Gilbert lives in New York, where she is a columnist for O, The Oprah Magazine.