Joan Didion is an American essayist, novelist and screenwriter.
Background
Because her father was in the Army Air Corps during World War II, her family was constantly relocated and she did not attend school on a regular basis. Then, at the age of nine or ten, in 1943 or early 1944, her family settled back in Sacramento, and her father went to Detroit to settle defense contracts for World War I and II.
Career
For two years at Vogue, Joan Didion worked her way up from promotional copywriter to associate feature editor. While there, she wrote her first novel, which was published in 1963.
Joan Didion and her husband John Gregory Dunne worked closely together for most of their careers, and much of their writing is intertwined. With Dunne, Didion co-wrote a number of screenplays, including an adaptation of her novel Play It As It Lays. She and Dunne also spent eight years adapting the biography of journalist Jessica Savitch into the film Up Close & Personal.
Screenplays
The Panic in Needle Park (1971), Play It as It Lays (1972), A Star Is Born (1976), True Confessions (1981), Up Close & Personal (1996)
Nonfiction
Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1968), The White Album (1979), Salvador (1983), Miami (1987), After Henry (1992), Political Fictions (2001), Where I Was From (2003), The Year of Magical Thinking (2005), We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live, The Year of Magical Thinking (2006), Blue Nights (2011)
Fiction
Run, River (1963), Play It as It Lays (1970), A Book of Common Prayer (1977), Democracy (1984), The Last Thing He Wanted (1996)