Diane Meier

Chick Lit? Women’s Literature? Why Not Just ... Literature?

Publication Date: Wednesday, August 11, 2010

I am a fan of a website that delivers on the promise of acting as a kind of "concierge for the brain." And as such, it's called, Head Butler. I count on them to plow through the stacks of popular (and less popular) culture and separate the dross from the gold. More often than not, I follow the Butler's advice immediately. Amazon owes a debt to Jesse Kornbluth, the Butler, himself.

Read the full article here.

Honoring the Work

Publication Date: Sunday, August 01, 2010

The July-August issue of Litchfield Magazine featured my essay about the level of craftsmanship we’ve been lucky enough to find in Litchfield County, as we’ve built our barns, stone walls and gardens.  Right now the house is undergoing its own renovation and Frank and I have been living out of the guest room in the big barn. Not, perhaps, the hardship “living in a barn” would suggest, but we’ll be very glad to be back home this winter.  And there will be even more craftsman detail to discuss then.

Also in the July-August issue of Litchfield Magazine, their list of the 50 most important residents (PDF here).  While we’re not exactly sure of their criteria, Frank and I were both proud to be recognized as serving some purpose in our region.

Five Questions for…Diane Meier

Publication Date: Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Diane Meier, featured author at She Writes' Extraordinary Heroines event this Wednesday, marketing guru, and author of The Season of Second Chances, answers five questions from Katherine Lanpher—an award-winning print and broadcast journalist, and host of "Upstairs at the Square,"—about tale-tellers, childhood, and the art of style.

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Diane Meier on the Faith Middleton Show

Publication Date: Friday, April 30, 2010

FMS: "The Season of Second Chances"
In this episode: Coming-of-age can happen at any age

Host:
Faith Middleton
Contributor(s): Lori Mack, Cameron Henning

12:38 minutes (6.07 MB)
Download this Episode

The Woman I Love, by Frank Delaney

Publication Date: Thursday, April 22, 2010

When I first met Diane, in the early 1990s, I was impressed by the same things that strike me now: her energy, on all fronts; her friendly, democratic good manners to everyone at every level; her quite remarkable desire to be helpful – in any gathering she’s still at her best (and she will agree with this) if you give her a job to do. Her inventiveness performs like a very expensive car - revving silently, getting to top speed fast, capable of taking every twist and turn with safety; it’s how she runs her business, it’s how she runs her half of our life. And her generosity is by any standards extraordinary — almost reckless; I know of many cases where she has subsidized clients who became friends, and I frequently have to try and stop that exploitation (if she lets me).

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Kent Marketing Executive Makes Auspicious Fiction Debut

Publication Date: Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Diane Meier of Kent has written a warm and funny and inspiring first novel, "The Season of Second Chances" (Henry Holt), about a divorced academic in her late 40s who learns that it is never too late to change your life.

Columbia University professor Joy Harkness is tired of her university job and of coping with the challenges of New York City when she is offered a position at a Massachusetts college.

Joy packs up her life, heads north, and finds all sorts of surprising personal and professional adventures in a small New England town.
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The New York Times

Publication Date: Thursday, April 15, 2010

At 48, Joy Harkness, a professor at Columbia, still doesn’t have the life she imagined. The one in which she “would become that self-assured woman who knew where the important people lunched,” a woman who “Susan Sontag would choose to meet for an early supper and a movie we might then hack to pieces.” So when she is recruited by Amherst College, she puts her apartment on the market, packs her things and moves north. There, installed in a wreck of a Victorian, she discovers that the life she’s been waiting for might have a different shape altogether.
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Book Brahmin: Diane Meier

Publication Date: Friday, April 09, 2010

I always read a number of books at once. And I rarely carry books between New York City and Connecticut--they wait for me in each spot, like friends I will visit at home. Currently I'm reading Venetia Kelly's Traveling Show--the latest novel from my husband, Frank Delaney--a brilliant, fast, funny, satirical look at the politics of love and money in 1932 Ireland; Hilma Wolitzer's Summer Reading, a small, engaging book about a summer reading group and three women whose lives are opened and expanded because of books (a chamber piece, maybe--but a chamber piece by Mozart); Nicky Haslam's Redeeming Features, a dishy memoir filled with great notes on the culture of the 1960s and behind-the-scenes accounts of people I've been interested in forever; Zach Mason's Lost Books of the Odyssey, a witty, playful, smart reworking of the classic Homeric myth, as Odysseus reinvents his own story; Amanda Vail's brilliant and graceful biography of Jerome Robbins, Somewhere, full of psychological insight and unexpected forgiveness.

Read the entire interview here.

Twenty Questions for Novelist Diane Meier of Kent, CT

Publication Date: Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Diane Meier’s debut novel, The Season of Second Chances (Henry Holt and Company), is about Joy Harkness, a 48-year-old tenured professor of literature at Columbia University, who is gifted as a teacher and scholar but hapless and hopeless in her personal life. New York City has not been kind or generous to her, and when she gets a too-good-to-be-true offer from Amherst College, Joy gets what many middle-aged people secretly hope for: a do-over. She impulsively buys a rundown Victorian house, discovers the pleasures of renovation and decoration, makes friends unlike any she’s had before, and, well . . . let’s just say this is a feel-good book. If the plot sounds romantic, optimistic, and cinematic (you can imagine Laura Linney playing Joy in the movie), the book is also sharp and smart as a book about a gifted scholar must be to be credible.

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Interview on BlogTalkRadio

Publication Date: Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Interview with Diane Meier, highly regarded marketing professional, who has set the look for major luxury brands including Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue. Diane is joining to tell us all about her debut novel, The Season of Second Chances. It's the story of a smart and irascible woman of a certain age and how she ultimately celebrates her sense of style and intelligence as well as her need for personal meaning and self-expression.

Listen to the interview.