Ariel Gore's Biography

Born on the Monterey Peninsula and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Ariel Gore spent the years she was supposed to be in high school as an international bag lady traveling through Asia and Europe and returned to California at age 19, baby in tow.

Following her misspent youth, she graduated from Mills College and earned a master's degree in journalism from U.C. Berkeley.

 In 1993, she founded of Hip Mama, an award-winning parenting zine covering the culture and politics of motherhood. Widely credited with launching maternal feminism, the New Yorker said, "It's the quality of the writing that sets Hip Mama apart."

 Ariel's pregnancy and parenting books, The Hip Mama Survival Guide (Hyperion, 1998), The Mother Trip (Seal Press, 2000), and Whatever, Mom (Seal Press, 2004), have been called "delightful" (Glamour), "Terrific and important" (San Francisco Chronicle), and "revolutionary" (The Seattle Times).

Her lyrical teenage memoir, Atlas of the Human Heart (Seal Press, 2003), was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award.  The Utne Reader says: "Ariel Gore's transformation from globetrotting teenager to the hippest of mamas reads like a movie script about a Gen-X slacker following her bliss to unlikely success."

Her novel, The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show (HarperOne, 2006), was featured on MTV and was a BookSense pick praised by the Los Angeles Times as "Beguiling" and highly recommended by Library Journal as "a savvy rebuke of religious bigotry and a fun, fast, memorable read."

Her guide to writing and the creative life, How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead (Three Rivers, 2007) was praised by Booklist as "The snappiest, most useful books a writer for hire is likely to read."

She was named one of "20 Under 30" influential women by Working Woman Magazine and called "conservative Americva's worst nightmare" by San Jose Mercury News. She debated Newt Gingrich on MTV and is a sought-after expert on creativity and women's issues interviewed on NPR and Life & Style as well as CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, and MTV news.

Ariel's essays, articles, and short stories have appeared in dozens of newspapers, magazines, and periodicals including the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner, Salon, Parenting, and Utne, as well as in anthologies including Wild Child (Seal Press, 1999), the American Book Award-winning Mothers Who Think (Washington Square Press, 2000), Listen Up: Voices from the Next Feminist Generation (Seal Press, 2001), Because I Said So (HarperCollins, 2005), Lost On Purpose (Seal press, 2005), and Portland Noir (Akashic Books, 2009). 

Her latest book, Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness, is forthcoming from Farrar Straus Giroux.  She lives in Portland Oregon with her partner Maria and her son Maximilian.

Ariel Gore is The Indiana Jones of literature.       —Chuckpalahniuk.net