Dietland (Walker)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Rasied—States of Utah and California, USA
• Education—M.A., Bennington College; Ph.D., University of London
• Currently—lives in New York City area


Sarai Walker received her M.F.A. in creative writing from Bennington College. As a magazine writer, her articles appeared in national publications, including Seventeen and Mademoiselle. She subsequently served as an editor and writer for Our Bodies, Ourselves, before moving to London and then Paris to complete a Ph.D. She currently lives in the New York City area. Dietland is her first novel. (From the publisher.)

In her words:
First things first: My first name is pronounced sa-RAY, not Sarah or sa-RYE or Sari or Sherry or Sarie or Sierra.

I'm a writer and part-time English professor living in the New York City area.

I grew up in California and Utah. Fun fact: In high school, my short story “Pink Champagne” won first place in Sassy magazines’s fiction contest.

I moved to NYC to attend college and began writing for women's and teen magazines such as Mademoiselle and Seventeen. [At Seventeen, I liked to look up Sylvia Plath’s articles in the archives.] I moved to London for a year, earned a master’s degree in English, then moved back to NYC and continued writing for magazines and living the glamorous life of an office temp in the publishing industry.

In my late twenties, I moved to Boston to do other things, including working as a writer at Harvard and then working as a writer and editor on the 2005 edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves. During this time, I also earned an M.F.A. in creative writing and literature from Bennington College.

In my early thirties, I sold almost all of my belongings and moved to London to complete a Ph.D. in English at the University of London. I actually lived in Bloomsbury during much of my time in London. Yes, Bloomsbury. I now have a fancy title and a lot of student loans. During my Ph.D., I spent periods of time living in Paris, and used to speak French pretty well, but now I’ve lost most of it. I wrote most of Dietland while living in Europe.
My Ph.D. research focused on normative femininity of the body; the fat female body; consciousness-raising and the "personal is political" in feminist practice and as a literary aesthetic; American second-wave feminist history and fiction; "chick lit"; critical theory, particularly Michel Foucault. I read a lot of amazing books during my Ph.D., but if I had to choose the one that influenced me the most, I’d choose this one.

I’ve recently begun work on my second novel. (From the author's website.)