Meghan O'Rourke

{{Infobox person

|name = Meghan O'Rourke

|image = Meghan orourke 2011.jpg

|birth_date = {{birth date and age|1976|1|26}}

|birth_place = New York City, New York, U.S.

|death_date =

|death_place =

|occupation = Nonfiction writer, poet and critic

|education = Yale University (BA)
Warren Wilson College (MFA)

}}

Meghan O'Rourke (born 1976) is an American nonfiction writer, poet and critic.

Background and education

O'Rourke was born on January 26, 1976, in Brooklyn, New York.{{Cite book|last=Lightner|first=Barb|title=Literary Biographies|publisher=Great Neck Publishing|year=2019|pages=1–3}} The eldest of the three children of Paul and Barbara O'Rourke, she had two younger brothers. Her mother was a longtime teacher and administrator at Saint Ann's, an elite independent school in Brooklyn, and later headmaster of the Pierrepont School in Westport, Connecticut. Her father, a classicist and Egyptologist, also taught at Saint Ann's and Pierrepont. O'Rourke attended St. Ann's through high school. She earned a bachelor's of arts degree in English language and literature from Yale University in 1997 and a master of fine arts degree in poetry from Warren Wilson College in 2005.

Career

=Journalism=

Immediately after graduating from Yale, O'Rourke began an internship as an editor at The New Yorker. She was promoted to fiction/nonfiction editor in 2000, becoming one of the youngest editors ever at the publication. During this time, she also freelanced as a contributing editor of the literary quarterly Grand Street. In 2002, O'Rourke moved to the online magazine Slate, serving as culture and literary editor until 2009 and as founding editor of DoubleX, a section of Slate that focused on women’s issues. She also continued to moonlight with other publications; from 2005 to 2010 she was a poetry coeditor of the Paris Review.{{cite news|url=http://meghanorourke.net/bio|title=Meghan O'Rourke Biography|access-date=January 27, 2015}} She is also an occasional contributor to The New York Times. O'Rourke has written on a wide range of topics, including horse racing, gender bias in the literary world, the politics of marriage and divorce, and the place of grief and mourning in modern society. She has published poems in literary journals and magazines including The New Yorker, Best American Poetry, The New Republic, and Poetry,{{Cite web|url=http://poemsoutloud.net/audio/archive/meghan_orourke_reads_spectacular/|title=Poems Out Loud > Meghan O'Rourke Reads Spectacular|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170910223356/http://poemsoutloud.net/audio/archive/meghan_orourke_reads_spectacular/|archive-date=September 10, 2017|access-date=April 1, 2009}} along with Perrine's Literatures Twelfth Edition.

O'Rourke's first book of poems, Halflife, was published by Norton in 2007. Her book The Long Goodbye, a memoir of grief and mourning written after her mother's death, was published to wide critical acclaim in 2011. On July 1, 2019, O'Rourke became editor of The Yale Review, coinciding with the 200th anniversary of its founding.{{Cite web |date=December 6, 2018 |title=Introducing the New Editor of The Yale Review: Meghan O'Rourke |url=https://lithub.com/introducing-the-new-editor-of-the-yale-review-meghan-orourke/ |access-date=December 6, 2018 |website=Literary Hub |language=en-US}}

O'Rourke suffers from an autoimmune disorder that she has written about for The New Yorker.{{cite magazine|url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/08/26/whats-wrong-with-me|title=What's Wrong with Me? I had an autoimmune disease. Then the disease had me.|magazine=The New Yorker|first=Meghan|last=O'Rourke|date=August 19, 2013|access-date=January 25, 2015}} Her latest book, The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness, was released in March 2022.{{Cite book|last=O'Rourke|first=Meghan|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7sE0EAAAQBAJ|title=The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness|date=March 1, 2022|publisher=Penguin|isbn=978-0-698-19076-4|language=en}} Publishers Weekly named it one of the top ten books of 2022, regardless of genre.{{Cite web |title=Best Books 2022: Publishers Weekly Publishers Weekly |url=https://best-books.publishersweekly.com/pw/best-books/2022/top-10 |access-date=October 27, 2022 |website=Publishers Weekly}} O'Rourke has been treated for Lyme disease.{{Cite news|url=https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/news/radcliffe-magazine/mysteries-chronic-illness|title=The Mysteries of Chronic Illness|date=April 7, 2015|work=Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University|access-date=May 27, 2018|language=en}} The Invisible Kingdom details her decade-long struggle with it and with an autoimmune condition as well as the protracted process of obtaining a correct diagnosis. O'Rourke details how her symptoms were discounted by medical professionals, some of whom lacked empathy. The memoir is highly critical of the medical establishment, documenting its inadequacy in treating those with chronic medical conditions, especially those without a clear diagnosis.{{cite web |last1=Kelly |first1=Hillary |title=Review: How America fails chronically ill people, in one memoirist's diagnosis |url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2022-03-04/meghan-orourke-invisible-kingdom-review-chronically-ill |website=Los Angeles Times |date=March 4, 2022}} The memoir was nominated for the 2022 National Book Award for Nonfiction.{{cite web |last1=Andrews |first1=Meredith |title=2022 National Book Awards Longlist for Nonfiction |url=https://www.nationalbook.org/2022-national-book-awards-longlist-for-nonfiction/ |website=National Book Foundation |date=September 14, 2022}}

Awards and fellowships

2005: Union League and Civic Arts Foundation Award from the Poetry Foundation{{cite web|last=Poets.org|url=http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1579|title=Meghan O'Rourke|access-date=April 19, 2014}}
2007: Lannan Literary Award{{cite web|last=Lannon.org|url=http://www.lannan.org/residency/experience/meghan-orourke|title=Meghan O'Rourke|access-date=April 19, 2014}}
2008: May Sarton Poetry Prize{{cite web|last=American Academy of Arts & Sciences|url=https://www.amacad.org/content/about/about.aspx?d=20&t=4&s=0|title=Recipients of the Poetry Prize in Honor of May Sarton|access-date=April 19, 2014}}
2014: Guggenheim Award for General Nonfiction{{cite web|last=John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation|title=Meghan O'Rourke|url=http://www.gf.org/fellows/17646-meghan-orourke|access-date=April 19, 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140419160029/http://www.gf.org/fellows/17646-meghan-orourke|archive-date=April 19, 2014}}
2017: Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant to complete her book, What's Wrong With Me? The Mysteries of Chronic Illness{{cite web|last1=Whiting Foundation|title=2017 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grantee: Meghan O'Rourke|url=https://www.whiting.org/awards/content/meghan-orourke#/|website=Whiting.org|access-date=January 24, 2018}}

Bibliography

= Poetry =

;Collections

{{cite book |ref=none |author= |title=Halflife: poems |location=New York |publisher=W. W. Norton |year=2007 }}
Once: Poems (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011).
Sun In Days (New York: W. W. Norton, 2017).

;List of poems

class='wikitable sortable' width='90%'
width=25%\|Title !\|Year !\|First published !\|Reprinted/collected
"Navesink" \|2017 \|{{cite magazine \|ref=none \|author= \|date=March 13, 2017 \|title=Navesink \|magazine=The New Yorker \|volume=93 \|issue=4 \|pages=55 \|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/13/navesink }} \|
"My Life as a Subject" \|2008 \| (June 2008). [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=192&issue=3&page=23 "My Life as a Subject"]. Poetry. 192: 200–4. \|
"On Marriage" \|2008 \| (June 2008). [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=192&issue=3&page=28 "On Marriage"]. Poetry. 192: 205. \|
"Halflife" \|2005 \| (September 2005). [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/issue/71419/september-2005 "Halflife"]. Poetry. 187: 411. \|
"Sleep" \|2005 \| (September 2005). [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=43233 "Sleep"]. Poetry. 187: 410. \|

class='wikitable sortable' width='90%'

width=25%|Title

!|Year

!|First published

!|Reprinted/collected

"Navesink"

|2017

|{{cite magazine |ref=none |author= |date=March 13, 2017 |title=Navesink |magazine=The New Yorker |volume=93 |issue=4 |pages=55 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/13/navesink }}

"My Life as a Subject"

|2008

| (June 2008). [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=192&issue=3&page=23 "My Life as a Subject"]. Poetry. 192: 200–4.

"On Marriage"

|2008

| (June 2008). [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=192&issue=3&page=28 "On Marriage"]. Poetry. 192: 205.

"Halflife"

|2005

| (September 2005). [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/issue/71419/september-2005 "Halflife"]. Poetry. 187: 411.

"Sleep"

|2005

| (September 2005). [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=43233 "Sleep"]. Poetry. 187: 410.

= Memoirs=

The Long Goodbye, memoir (New York: Riverhead, 2011).
The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness, memoir (Riverhead Books, 2022).

=Anthologies=

ed. A World Out of Reach: Dispatches from Life Under Lockdown (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020)

References

Sources

Contemporary Authors Online. The Gale Group, 2006.

External links

Website: [http://meghanorourke.net/ Official website]
Excerpt: [http://meghanorourke.net/books/the-long-goodbye An excerpt] from The Long Goodbye, in The New Yorker.
Audio: [https://web.archive.org/web/20170910223356/http://poemsoutloud.net/audio/archive/meghan_orourke_reads_spectacular/ Meghan O'Rourke reads "Spectacular"] from the book Halflife (via [https://web.archive.org/web/20090405173256/http://poemsoutloud.net/ poemsoutloud.net])
[http://www.kwls.org/podcasts/meghan_orourke_2008/ Audio: Meghan O'Rourke reading from Halflife] at the Key West Literary Seminar, 2008. (.mp3 / 15:44)
[https://web.archive.org/web/20100706044253/http://www.guernicamag.com/poetry/1570/chemotherapy/ "Chemotherapy"], a poem by Meghan O'Rourke published in Guernica Magazine
[https://twitter.com/meghanor Meghan O'Rourke on Twitter]