Hilma Wolitzer (b. 1930) is a critically hailed author of literary fiction. Her work has been described by the New York Times as “often hilarious and always compassionate.” Born in Brooklyn, New York, she began writing as a child. She was first published at age nine, when a poem she wrote about winter appeared in a local journal. She was voted the poet laureate of her junior high school, but after graduating from high school at sixteen she worked at various jobs, from renting beach chairs under the boardwalk in Coney Island to pasting feathers on hats in a factory and holding a position as an office clerk.
Wolitzer married at twenty-two, and though her family consumed most of her time, she began writing again. Her first published short story, “Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket,” appeared in print when she was thirty-six. Eight years (and several short stories) later, she published Ending (1974), a novel about a young man with a terminal illness. The New York Times called it “as moving in its ideas as it is in its emotions.” Ending was released when Wolitzer was forty-four years old and she was dubbed the “Great Middle-Aged Hope.”
She followed this success with In the Flesh (1977), a well-received novel of a conventional marriage threatened by an affair. Since then, her novels have dealt mostly with domestic themes, and she has drawn praise for illuminating the dark interiors of the American home. In the late seventies and mid-eighties, Wolitzer also published a quartet of young adult novels: Introducing Shirley Braverman (1975), Out of Love (1976), Toby Lived Here (1978), and Wish You Were Here (1984).
Following her novels Hearts (1980), In the Palomar Arms (1983), Silver (1988), and Tunnel of Love (1994), Wolitzer confronted a paralyzing writer’s block. Unable to write more than a page or two a day—none of which ever congealed into a story—she did not publish a book for more than a decade.
After working with a therapist to try to understand the block, she completed the first draft of a new novel—about a woman who consults a therapist to solve a psychic mystery—in just a few months. Upon its release, The Doctor’s Daughter (2006) was touted as a “triumphant comeback” by the New York Times Book Review. Since then, Wolitzer has published two more books—Summer Reading (2007) and An Available Man (2012).
In addition to her novels, Wolitzer has published nonfiction as well, including a book on writing called The Company of Writers (2001). She has also taught writing at colleges and workshops around the country. She has two daughters—an editor and a novelist—and lives with her husband in New York City, where she continues to write.