Heather Havrilesky
{{short description|American author}}
File:Heather Havrilesky on May 30, 2016.jpg
Heather Havrilesky (born June 1970){{cite web|url=https://aeon.co/essays/how-did-i-end-up-growing-old|title=Awaiting Renewal |last1=Havrilesky |first1=Heather |date=2013 |website=aeon.co |publisher=Aeon |accessdate=13 September 2016}}{{cite web|url=https://rss.art19.com/episodes/03d56d12-41c0-45d5-b10c-97e039ec3fad.mp3|title=The Pied Piper of Feminism}}{{Dead link|date=July 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}{{cite web|url=http://askmolly.substack.com/p/birthday/comments|last=Havrilesky|first=Heather|title=Birthday|date=4 April 2020|accessdate=21 February 2023}}{{cite web|url=
https://askmolly.substack.com/p/birthday-a94|last=Havrilesky|first=Heather|title=Birthday|date=2 June 2023|accessdate=15 January 2024}}Julia Llewellyn Smith, She's written a tell-all memoir about hating her husband..., Times, London, 28 February 2022, Times2, pp. 4-5. is an American author, essayist, and humorist. She writes the advice column "Ask Polly" for Substack. She is the author of Disaster Preparedness: A Memoir, the advice book How to Be a Person in the World and the essay collection What If This Were Enough?{{cite web|url=https://aeon.co/essays/how-did-i-end-up-growing-old|title=Awaiting Renewal|last1=Havrilesky |first1=Heather |date=2013 |website=aeon.co |publisher=Aeon |accessdate=13 September 2016}}
Career
In 1996, Havrilesky was hired as a staff writer at Suck.com, a webzine that was one of the web's earliest ad-supported content sites. Together with artist Terry Colon, she wrote the popular "Filler" comic strip for the site under the pen name Polly Esther.{{cite web
| url = http://digiday.com/publishers/gen-xers-rejoice-suck-com-comes-back-daily-newsletter/
| title = Gen Xers rejoice: Suck.com comes back as a daily newsletter
| work = Digiday
| last1 = Braiker
| first1 = Brian
| date = 2015-11-06
| accessdate = 2016-07-19
| url = http://nerdist.com/maria-bamford-writers-galore-mates-and-more-the-week-in-podcasts/
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160626135334/http://nerdist.com/maria-bamford-writers-galore-mates-and-more-the-week-in-podcasts/
| url-status = dead
| archive-date = June 26, 2016
| title = Maria Bamford, Writers Galore, MATES and More: The Week In Podcasts
| work = Nerdist
| date = 2016-06-24
| accessdate = 2016-07-19
}}
In 2001, Havrilesky started an advice column on her personal blog called Dear Rabbit.{{cite web
| url = http://rabbitblog.com/2001_10_01_rabbitblog_archive.html#6637824#6637824
| title = 9:58 AM
| author = Heather Havrilesky
| work = Rabbit Blog
| date = 2001-10-24
| accessdate = 2019-04-25
}} In May of that year, she began writing an advice column on Suck, but the site went under a month later.{{cite web
| url = http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/07/ask-polly-advice-lessons.html
| title = It's Never Been Harder to Be Young
| work = NYMag.com
| date = 2016-07-14
| accessdate = 2016-07-19
}}
Havrilesky began writing for Salon in 2003 as their TV critic.{{cite web
| url = http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/heather-havrilesky-a-former-durhamite-turned-new-york-advice-columnist-comes-home-to-fix-your-life/Content?oid=5048553
| title = Heather Havrilesky, a Former Durhamite Turned New York Advice Columnist, Comes Home to Fix Your Life
| author = Zack Smith
| work = IndyWeek
| date = 2016-07-06
| accessdate = 2016-07-19
}}
In 2011, Havrilesky became one of the original columnists for The Daily, the world's first iPad-only news app.{{cite web
| url = http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2011/01/18/heather-havrilesky-on-%E2%80%98disaster-preparedness%E2%80%99/
| title = Heather Havrilesky on 'Disaster Preparedness'
| author = Miranda Popkey
| work = Paris Review
| date = 2011-01-18
| accessdate = 2016-07-19
}} Havrilesky exited that position soon after the app launched,{{cite web
| url = https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-daily-rupert-murdoch-ipad_n_867838
| title = The Daily, Rupert Murdoch's iPad Paper, Loses Another Staffer
| author = Michael Calderone
| work = HuffPost
| date = 2011-05-27
| accessdate = 2019-04-25
}} and the site was shuttered by its parent News Corporation in December 2012.
She pitched an advice column called Ask Polly to The Awl in 2012, which ran as a weekly feature.{{cite web
| url = https://www.theawl.com/2014/08/polly-asks-new-york-magazine-wants-me-to-write-ask-polly-for-them-should-i-tell-them-to-piss-off/
| title = Polly Asks: New York Magazine Wants Me to Write Ask Polly For Them. Should I Tell Them to Piss Off?
| author = Heather Havrilesky
| work = The Awl
| date = 2014-08-20
| accessdate = 2019-04-25
}} New York magazine began publishing the column in 2014.{{cite web
| url = https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/14/ask-polly-advice-column-heather-havrilesky
| title = Ask Polly's Heather Havrilesky: 'I feel connected to the people who write to me'
| author = Alana Massey
| work = The Guardian
| date = 2016-07-14
| accessdate = 2016-07-19
}}{{cite web|author=Lyz Lenz|date=July 25, 2016|title=HOW TO BE A PERSON IN THE WORLD BY HEATHER HAVRILESKY|url=https://therumpus.net/2016/07/how-to-be-a-person-in-the-world-by-heather-havrilesky/|accessdate=2019-04-19|work=The Rumpus}} Each column addresses a single letter requesting advice.
Havrilesky's first book, Disaster Preparedness: A Memoir (2010),{{cite web
| url = https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/books/review/Genzlinger-t.html
| title = The Problem With Memoirs
| author = Neil Genzlinger
| work = NY Times
| date = 2011-01-28
| accessdate = 2016-07-19
}} is an autobiographical work, it dealt mostly with her upbringing in Durham, North Carolina.{{cite web
| url = http://www.sfgate.com/books/article/Disaster-Preparedness-by-Heather-Havrilesky-2476374.php#photo-2038296
| title = 'Disaster Preparedness,' by Heather Havrilesky
| author = Dan Zigmond
| work = SF Gate
| date = 2011-02-06
| accessdate = 2016-07-19
}}
Her second book, How to Be a Person in the World, was released in July 2016. The book was made up of new Ask Polly advice columns along with a handful of her most popular previously published columns.{{cite magazine
| url = http://www.ew.com/article/2016/07/15/how-to-be-a-person-in-the-world-heather-havrilesky-review
| title = How to Be a Person in the World by Heather Havrilesky: EW review
| magazine = Entertainment Weekly
| author = Leah Greenblatt
| date = 2016-07-16
| accessdate = 2016-07-19
}}
Her third book, the essay collection What If This Were Enough? was released in 2018.{{cite web|title=Heather Havrilesky asks a radical, essential question: "What If This Were Enough?"|first=Erin|last=Keane|website=Salon.com|url=https://www.salon.com/2018/10/02/heather-havrilesky-asks-a-radical-essential-question-what-if-this-were-enough/|date=October 2, 2018}} Erin Keane of Salon.com summarized the book as follows: "Havrilesky peels back the layers of late-capitalism malaise that bind us to the promise of some better version of ourselves lurking just beyond our reach, and dares us instead to accept our current, flawed lives, suffering and all, in order to settle into a less anxious and resentful present."
Personal life
Selected works
=Books=
- Disaster Preparedness: A Memoir (2010){{Cite book|last=Havrilesky|first=Heather|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0rRPEAAAQBAJ|title=Disaster Preparedness: A Memoir|date=2011-12-06|publisher=Penguin|isbn=978-1-59448-546-6|language=en}}
- How to Be a Person in the World (2016){{Cite book|last=Havrilesky|first=Heather|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oxInDwAAQBAJ|title=How to Be a Person in the World: Ask Polly's Guide Through the Paradoxes of Modern Life|date=2017|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|isbn=978-1-101-91158-7|language=en}}
- How to Be a Person in the World: Ask Polly's Guide Through the Paradoxes of Modern (2017)
- Ask Polly's Guide to Your Next Crisis (A Vintage Short) (2017){{Cite book|last=Havrilesky|first=Heather|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TLa-DQAAQBAJ|title=Ask Polly's Guide to Your Next Crisis|date=2017-02-13|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-525-43517-4|language=en}}
- What If This Were Enough? (2018){{Cite book|last=Havrilesky|first=Heather|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Svq0DwAAQBAJ|title=What If This Were Enough?|date=2019-10-08|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-525-43496-2|language=en}}
- Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage (2022){{Cite book|last=Havrilesky|first=Heather|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B3EtEAAAQBAJ|title=Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage|date=2022-02-08|publisher=HarperCollins|isbn=978-0-06-298449-4|language=en}}
=Other writings=
- {{cite magazine |author=Havrilesky, Heather |date=March 23, 2015 |title=Mother of Dragons |department=Shouts & Murmurs |magazine=The New Yorker |volume=91 |issue=5 |pages=49 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/23/mother-of-dragons|access-date=2020-02-21}}
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
External links
{{Commons category|Heather Havrilesky}}
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Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers
Category:20th-century American women writers
Category:21st-century American non-fiction writers
Category:21st-century American women writers
Category:American advice columnists
Category:American women non-fiction writers
Category:The New Yorker people
Category:American women columnists