Who

Freudenberger is a literary prodigy who rose from assistant at the New Yorker to award-winning author with astonishing (and jealousy-inducing) speed.

Backstory

The daughter of television writer and playwright Daniel Freudenberger, Nell was born and raised in New York and scored her first book deal when she was a 26-year-old New Yorker assistant. With encouragement from then-fiction editor Bill Buford, Freudenberger published a story—her first in print, accompanied by a doe-eyed photo—in the magazine's 2001 debut fiction issue. She quickly signed with super-agent Binky Urban of ICM, who managed to whip up a frenzy among publishers desperate to write a huge check for a book yet to be written. Freudenberger reportedly turned down an offer of half a million from Hyperion in order to work with her chosen editor, Daniel Halpern at Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins, for a comparatively paltry $100,000. Such overnight success and the ensuing widespread jealousy prompted Curtis Sittenfeld to coin the catchy neologism "Schadenfreudenberger."

Of note

Her first book, 2003's Lucky Girls, based on her post-grad travels around India and Thailand, received positive—if occasionally grudging—reviews, and won the PEN/Malamud award for short fiction. In 2006, she published her debut novel The Dissident, about a Bejing artist and activist transplanted to Los Angeles. The book received more mixed reviews, such as A.O. Scott's in the New York Times: "Like an eager and generous dinner-party hostess, Freudenberger assembles a vivid assortment of interesting people and then isn't quite sure what to do with them."

Personal

Freudenberger married Paul Logan, an architect ten years her senior, in 2006. Her godfather, actor John Lithgow, officiated at the Freudenberg/Logan nuptials. The couple lives in the East Village and spends weekends in East Hampton.