Piece Description

Joan Didion claims more than three decades as one of our most celebrated authors, having received the Edward MacDowell Medal, Columbia Journalism Award, and Gold Medal for Belles Lettres from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, given once every six years. Her best known books are "Play It As It Lays", "A Book of Common Prayer", and "Salvador", and her screenplays, co-written with late husband John Gregory Dunne, include "Panic in Needle Park", "Play It As It Lays", "A Star is Born", and "Up Close and Personal". She lectures at Berkeley, Stanford, Yale, and Columbia, and regularly contributes to The New Yorker, The New York Times, and elsewhere. Her latest novel is "The Year of Magical Thinking".