Stacy Schiff

Early life

Schiff was born in Adams, Massachusetts, to Morton Schiff, the president of Schiff Clothing, a store founded by Schiff's great-grandfather in 1897, and Ellen, a professor of French literature at North Adams State college (now called Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts). Her family was Jewish. Schiff described herself as "an obstreperous child".

Schiff graduated from Phillips Academy (Andover) preparatory school, and subsequently earned her B.A. degree from Williams College in 1982.

Career

Until 1990, Schiff was a senior editor at Simon & Schuster. In 2000, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for Véra, a biography of Véra Nabokov, the wife and muse of the Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. She had earlier been a finalist for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for Saint-Exupéry: A Biography of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Schiff's A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America (2005) won the George Washington Book Prize. It was made into Franklin, a 2024 miniseries starring Michael Douglas.

Her fourth book, Cleopatra: A Life, was published in 2010. As The Wall Street Journal's reviewer put it, "Schiff does a rare thing: She gives us a book we'd miss if it didn't exist." The New Yorker termed the book "a work of literature"; Simon Winchester predicted "it will become a classic". Cleopatra appeared on The New York Times's Top Ten Books of 2010, and won the 2011 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography. A film adaptation directed by Denis Villeneuve was announced to be in development in 2024 for Sony and is intended to be Villeneuve's next project aftter the completion of Dune: Part Three.

Schiff's The Witches: Salem, 1692 was published in 2015. The New York Times described it as "an almost novelistic, thriller-like narrative". David McCullough declared the book "brilliant from start to finish". Writing in the New York Times Book Review, Jane Kamensky said the book was "curiously flat" and provided a “tenuous grip on the period,” concluding: “For all her talents in sketching the who, what, where and when of the Salem trials, [the] vexed question of why is one that Schiff simply cannot manage.” Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Felipe Fernández-Armesto found that Schiff offered "a trial narrative unsurpassed for detail and impressive for her mastery of the fragmentary and frustrating sources," but said that she "uncovers no new clues to understanding" how the sides in the trials aligned.

Schiff's essays and articles have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, and The Washington Post. A former guest columnist at The New York Times, Schiff resides in New York City and is a trustee of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Since 2023, Schiff has been on the board of Phillips Academy.

Personal life

In 1989, Schiff married Marc de La Bruyere, a Canadian real estate developer. They have three children.

Awards and honors

• National Endowment for the Humanities, fellowship
• 1995 Pulitzer Prize finalist, Saint-Exupéry: A Biography
• 1996 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, fellowship
• 2000 Pulitzer Prize, Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)
• 2002 Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center Fellowship, New York Public Library
• 2006 George Washington Book Prize, A Great Improvisation
• 2011 Library Lion, New York Public Library
• 2015 Lapham's Quarterly Janus Prize
• 2016 Literary Light, Boston Public Library
• 2017 New England Historic Genealogical Society Lifetime Achievement Award in History and Biography
• 2018 French Ministry of Culture, Chevalier des Arts et Lettres
• 2019 Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award
• 2019 American Academy of Arts and Letters
• 2023 finalist, George Washington Book Prize, The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams
• 2024 Colonial Dames of America Book Prize, The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams
• 2024 William Hickling Prescott Award for Excellence in Historical Writing, Massachusetts Historical Society
• 2024 Writer in Residence, American Library in Paris

Works

Books

• ; nominated for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize
• ; winner of 2000 Pulitzer Prize
• ; published in the UK as Dr Franklin Goes to France

Columns and reviews

References

References

1. "Barnes&Noble Meet the Writers: Stacy Schiff".
2. (May 14, 1989). "Stacy M. Schiff, An Editor, Weds". [[The New York Times]].
3. Wadler, Joyce. "PUBLIC LIVES; A Biographer Peers, Briefly, at Her Own Life".
4. Thompson, Bob. (May 24, 2006). "Schiff Wins Washington Book Prize For Work On Franklin". [[The Washington Post]].
5. Ruden, Sarah. (November 2010). "Book Review: ''Cleopatra''". [[The Wall Street Journal]].
6. Thurman, Judith. "The Cleopatriad".
7. "Cleopatra - Stacy Schiff - Author Biography".
8. (December 1, 2010). "The 10 Best Books of 2010". [[The New York Times]].
9. (November 15, 2012). "2011 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award". [[PEN America]].
10. Zacharek, Stephanie. "Denis Villeneuve Refuses to Let Hollywood Shrink Him Down to Size". TIME.
11. Alter, Alexandra. (October 25, 2015). "Stacy Schiff's ''The Witches'' Shines a Torch on Salem Trials". [[The New York Times]].
12. "Amazon Book Review".
13. (October 27, 2015). "'The Witches: Salem, 1692,' by Stacy Schiff". The New York Times.
14. "American Witches—and Their Hunters". WSJ.
15. Suellen Stringer-Hye. (1999). "An interview with Stacy Schiff". [[Pennsylvania State University]].
16. "Book reviews by Stacy Schiff in the New York Review of Books". The New York Review of Books.
17. (June 13, 2001). "Stacy Schiff details biographer's triumphs, tribulations, obsessions". iBerkshires.
18. "Board of Trustees". [[John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation]].
19. "Board of Trustees welcomes Stacy Schiff and Sanjiv Desai".
20. (1989-05-14). "Stacy M. Schiff, An Editor, Weds (Published 1989)".
21. "ALOUD: Lectures, Readings, Performances, & Discussions". Los Angeles Central Library.
22. https://www.pulitzer.org/finalists/stacy-schiff
23. "Stacy Schiff". [[John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation]].
24. "''Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)'', by Stacy Schiff (Random House)". The Pulitzer Prizes – Columbia University.
25. "Works by Cullman Center Fellows".
26. "George Washington Book Prize Past Winners".
27. (February 2, 2021). "Biography Symposium: Hermione Lee & Stacy Schiff".
28. "The Decades Ball – June 1, 2015".
29. (January 29, 2018). "Literary Lights Dinner - Associates of the Boston Public Library".
30. "2017 Annual Dinner".
31. (Summer 2018). "Nomination dans l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres".
32. "2019 Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award | Tulsa Library".
33. "2019 Newly Elected Members".
34. "Meet the Authors: 2023's Best Books on the Founding Era | George Washington's Mount Vernon".
35. "'The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams' with Stacy Schiff and Allen Guelzo | Princeton Alumni".
36. "Massachusetts Historical Society: William Hickling Prescott Award Ceremony & Conversation".
37. "Stacy Schiff".
38. "1995 Finalists". The Pulitzer Prizes – Columbia University.
39. "2000 Winners". The Pulitzer Prizes – Columbia University.