Jessica Ferri

My Daily Beast column on forgotten treasures is back, and I'm very happy to tell you this month is on the brilliant (and sadly negelected) Penelope Mortimer. 

You may know Mortimer as the author of The Pumpkin Eater, a provocative novel about marriage and divorce that was adapted into a film by Harold Pinter starring Anne Bancroft. The Pumpkin Eater has thankfully been reissued under the New York Review Books Classics list, but all of Mortimer's other work, including many more novels (the incredible My Friend Says It's Bulletproof), a biography of the Queen Mother, three volumes of autobiography, one unfinished, and her film criticism at The Observer all remain out of print. 

Do yourself a favor and discover the delight and wit of Penelope Mortimer today. 

Aritzia Magazine's 28th issue went live today and it contains a review of Lorrie Moore's new short-story collection, BARK, and two movie reviews by yours truly. One, The Standbys, is a documentary about Broadway standbys, and the other, The Pretty One, is a quirky romantic comedy starring Zoe Kazan and The New Girl's Jake Johnson. 

In further news, have you heard of this new online grammar checker, Grammarly? In addition to proof-reading they even offer a free plagiarism checker for when you think you're being brilliant but it's just some witty remark by Mark Twain that's been buried in the depths of your unconscious since your undergraduate days. [Sponsored post] 

Thrilled about my new monthly column with The Daily Beast on forgotten treasures - books that are out of print, recently reissued, generally overlooked. 

The first piece is about Two Roads to Dodge City, a collection of letters between father-and-son Ben and Nigel Nicolson written during a simultaneous road trip of America they undertook in 1986, Ben beginning in California, Nigel in Miami, and meeting in the middle in Dodge City. 

As you can imagine, this book is an absolute delight. It's out of print, but you can find used copies online. I found my copy, a first edition, in a fabulous bookstore, The Battery Park Book Exchange, in Asheville, North Carolina - which doubles as a champagne bar. Yeah, you heard that right.

My essay on Sylvia Plath's hair, which was originally published by The Daily Beast, has been adapted for the Indiana University Alumni Magazine. 

Recent reviews:

Camille Claudel 1915, starring Juliette Binoche, at Aritzia Magazine

Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, also at Aritzia Magazine - which was just named one of the best 10 books of the year by The New York Times. 

Elizabeth Gilbert's The Signature of All Things at The Barnes & Noble Review

I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Matt Zoller Seitz, one of my favorite critics, about his new book-length interview with none other than Wes Anderson.

Also excited to tell you I am now contributing to Bustle.com. My first piece for them is a list of Big, Fat Books to Devour on Your Precious Days Off. 

Happy Holidays! 

It's been a while!

The clips section of this website is finally updated. I've just started my master's degree in music performance at Brooklyn College, hence the delay. If you're interested in keeping up with my singing, visit singingstudies.tumblr.com.

In the meantime, I'm still writing! Here are a few highlights from the summer:

Julian Barnes' LEVELS OF LIFE
Paul Harding's ENON
Woody Allen's BLUE JASMINE
Donna Tartt's THE GOLDFINCH
Javier Marias' THE INFATUATIONS
Ben Stroud's BYZANTIUM

Eloping in New York: A User's Guide, at The Aesthete

Thanks for reading!

Hello! I'm very excited to tell you I am now writing film and book reviews for Aritzia Magazine. Check out the "In Review" section for reviews of Berberian Sound Studio and The Hunt. 

More to come soon!  

It was a total pleasure and honor to interview one of my favorite writers, Renata Adler, for The Aesthete. You can find the profile here. Two of Adler's novels, Speedboat and Pitch Dark, are available as recent reissues from The New York Review of Books. They are highly recommended reading. 

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Sylvia Plath's suicide at age 30, but it's not the only significant date in Plath studies. In fact, 2013 as a whole could be called the year of Plath. It's also the 50th anniversary of her novel, The Bell Jar, published in the U.K. under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas, in January 1963. (It would not be published in the United States until 1971.) It's been 50 years since her death, and yet interest in Plath shows no signs of waning. In honor of her "deathiversary" today, for the Daily Beast, I wrote an essay about my encounter with Plath's hair, (You read that right!), and at Dame Magazine, my thoughts on why Plath remains such an icon.

Past Plath-related articles:
The American Poet's Corner Inducts Sylvia Plath -The New Yorker's Book Bench
Books & Babies & Beef Stews: The Culinary Passion of Sylvia Plath - Plath Profiles
Sylvia Plath: Red and Blue - This Recording
Another Side of Sylvia - The Second Pass

Many apologies for the delay in updating this website!

The fact is I've been busy with my new job as a staff writer for Yahoo! Shine, their women's interest site.

You can keep up with all my pieces for Yahoo! at my writer profile page, or click on Yahoo! at the top banner for some of my favorite articles.