Filipino-American writer and editor
Jia Angeli Carla Tolentino
[1] (born 1988)
[2] is an American writer and editor.
[3]
[4] A staff writer for
The New Yorker ,
[5] she previously worked as deputy editor of
Jezebel and a contributing editor at
The Hairpin .
[6] Her writing has also appeared in
The New York Times Magazine
[7] and
Pitchfork .
[8] In 2019, her collected essays were published as
Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion .
Early life and education
Tolentino was born in
Toronto ,
Ontario , to parents from the
Philippines . When she was four, her family moved to
Houston, Texas , where she grew up in a
Southern Baptist community.
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13] Tolentino attended an evangelical
megachurch and a small Christian private school.
[13] Tolentino started elementary school early and graduated from high school as her class
salutatorian .
[13]
At the age of 15, she participated in the game show
Girls v. Boys in Puerto Rico.
[13]
In 2005, Tolentino enrolled at the
University of Virginia
[14] as a
Jefferson Scholar ,
[15] studying English, joining the
Pi Beta Phi sorority, and participating in an
a cappella group called The Virginia Belles.
[13] After graduating from UVA in 2009, Tolentino spent a year as a
Peace Corps volunteer in
Kyrgyzstan .
[9] Tolentino earned an
MFA from the
University of Michigan .
[16]
Career
Tolentino began writing for
The Hairpin in 2013, hired by then-editor-in-chief Emma Carmichael.
[17]
[18] In 2014, Tolentino and Carmichael both moved to
Jezebel , where Tolentino worked for two years before joining The New Yorker .
[6]
Tolentino's writing has won accolades
[19] across genres.
Flavorwire called her a "go-to music source,"
[20] while her first short story won the fall 2012 Raymond Carver Short Fiction Contest
[21] and was nominated for a
Pushcart Prize .
[22] She has also garnered favorable attention for essays on topics such as race in publishing,
[23] marriage,
[24] abortion,
[25] and notions of female empowerment,
[26] as well as for her no-pulled-punches music criticism.
The A.V. Club admired "Tolentino's sick burns on
Charlie Puth "
[27] and
Studio 360 observed that even in the near-universal panning of
Magic! 's song "
Rude ", "no criticism has been quite as cutting as Jia Tolentino's."
[28] Tolentino has reported extensively on the
#MeToo movement .
[29]
[30]
[31]
In 2017, Tolentino was named in the
Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the media category.
[32]
On August 6, 2019, Tolentino published a collection of essays entitled
Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion .
[18] It made its debut on
The New York Times Bestseller List on August 25, coming in at #2 on the Combined Print & E-Book Non-fiction list.
[33] In a review for
The New York Times ,
Maggie Doherty wrote: "Tolentino’s earnest ambivalence, expressed often throughout the book, is characteristic of millennial life-writing, and it can be contrasted with boomer self-satisfaction and
Gen X disaffection in the same genre."
Slate columnist
Laura Miller wrote in her review of the book, "Tolentino is a classical essayist along the lines of
Montaigne , threading her way on the page toward an understanding of what she thinks and feels about life, the world, and herself."
[34]
Lauren Oyler 's negative review of Trick Mirror in the
London Review of Books , "skewer[ed] the essays’ shallowness and prose quality," though Tolentino reacted positively to the review, calling it a "cleansing, illuminating experience to be read with such open disgust!"
[35]
[36]
Her 2021 reporting on the
conservatorship of Britney Spears , co-authored with
Ronan Farrow , attracted international attention,
[37]
[38]
[39] with the piece being described as "blistering" by Tyler Aquilina in
Entertainment Weekly
[40] and as a "journalistic reference text on Britney Spears" by Dirk Peitz in
Die Zeit .
[41]
In January 2023, Tolentino made a cameo in the
HBO Max show
Gossip Girl (2021) .
[42]
Personal life
Tolentino met her partner, Andrew Daley, an architect, while they were students at UVA.
[13]
[43] In the essay "I Thee Dread" in her book Trick Mirror , Tolentino writes at length about her ambivalence toward marriage.
[44]
[45]
References
^
"Reason for Dispute: My Name Is Not Angel Polentino" . The Billfold . 2013-03-15.
Archived from the original on 2019-02-18. Retrieved 2020-05-04 .
^ Chuck, Erion (2019-11-01).
"Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino" .
Archived from the original on 2020-08-09. Retrieved 2020-05-22 .
^
"Meet the secret Canadian explaining the Internet to the world, one Wife Guy and Adult Son at a time" . nationalpost . Retrieved 23 August 2021 .
^ Yohannes, Samraweet.
"Jia Tolentino among 10 emerging writers to receive $70K Whiting Award" . CBC . Retrieved 23 August 2021 .
^
"Jia Tolentino" . The New Yorker .
Archived from the original on 2018-02-05. Retrieved 2018-02-06 .
^
a
b Sterne, Peter (June 17, 2016).
"New Yorker hires Jezebel deputy editor Jia Tolentino as web staff writer" . Politico .
Archived from the original on July 2, 2016. Retrieved July 3, 2016 .
^ Tolentino, Jia (10 March 2016).
" 'Marvin Gaye' Charlie Puth" . The New York Times Magazine .
Archived from the original on 31 January 2021. Retrieved 3 July 2016 .
^ Tolentino, Jia (June 24, 2016).
"Laura Mvula: The Dreaming Room Album Review" . Pitchfork .
Archived from the original on August 14, 2017. Retrieved August 13, 2017 .
^
a
b Gruss, Mike (Summer 2017).
"Rising Star: Jia Tolentino has quickly made a name for herself as an essayist" . Virginia Magazine .
Archived from the original on 2018-02-07. Retrieved 2018-02-06 .
^ Tolentino, Jia (31 January 2017).
"The Most American Thing" . New Yorker .
Archived from the original on 31 August 2017. Retrieved 30 August 2017 .
^ Tolentino, Jia.
"I'm a Canadian citizen" . Twitter .
Archived from the original on 31 January 2021. Retrieved 30 August 2017 .
^ Tolentino, Jia (March 31, 2017).
"Mike Pence's Marriage and the Beliefs That Keep Women from Power" . The New Yorker .
Archived from the original on August 14, 2017. Retrieved 2017-08-14 .
^
a
b
c
d
e
f Langmuir, Molly (2019-07-24).
"Jia Tolentino Makes Sense Out of This Nonsense Moment" . ELLE .
Archived from the original on 2019-08-13. Retrieved 2019-08-10 .
^ Tolentino, Jia (August 13, 2017).
"Charlottesville and the Effort to Downplay Racism in America" . The New Yorker .
Archived from the original on August 13, 2017. Retrieved 2017-08-14 .
^ Hamilton, Heath (April 29, 2005).
"Second Baptist student wins Jefferson Scholarship at the University of Virginia" . Your Houston News .
Archived from the original on June 10, 2016. Retrieved July 3, 2016 .
^
"Jia Tolentino - Jefferson Scholars Foundation" . jeffersonscholars.org .
Archived from the original on 2016-08-12. Retrieved 2016-07-03 .
^ Tolentino, Jia.
"Bye, I Hate It" . Jezebel .
Archived from the original on 2017-08-13. Retrieved 2017-08-14 .
^
a
b Maggie Doherty (2019-08-04).
"Jia Tolentino on the 'Unlivable Hell' of the Web and Other Millennial Conundrums" .
The New York Times .
Archived from the original on 2019-08-04. Retrieved 2019-08-04 .
^ Ransom, Brian (7 August 2019).
"Please Fire Jia Tolentino" . The Paris Review . Retrieved 21 February 2023 .
^
"Staff Picks: Flavorwire's Favorite Cultural Things This Week" . Flavorwire . 5 March 2014.
Archived from the original on 26 August 2016. Retrieved 3 July 2016 .
^ Liang, Rio (May 15, 2013).
"Q&A with Jia Tolentino" . Carve Magazine .
Archived from the original on August 15, 2016. Retrieved July 3, 2016 .
^
"Short Story Review: The Odyssey by Jia Tolentino" . Fictionphile . 1 February 2013.
Archived from the original on 9 August 2016. Retrieved 3 July 2016 .
^ Bovy, Phoebe Maltz (12 October 2015).
"White Male Writers: No Longer the Default, and Not Terribly Interesting" . The New Republic .
Archived from the original on 29 June 2016. Retrieved 3 July 2016 .
^ Odell, Amy (30 December 2013).
"Are We Seriously Still Judging Women Who Want to Get Married?" . Cosmopolitan .
Archived from the original on 13 August 2016. Retrieved 3 July 2016 .
^ Tolentino, Jia.
"Interview With a Woman Who Recently Had an Abortion at 32 Weeks" . Jezebel .
Archived from the original on 2018-10-13. Retrieved 2018-10-01 .
^ King-Miller, Lindsay (November 21, 2014).
"Pretty Unnecessary: Taking beauty out of body positivity" . Bitch Media .
Archived from the original on April 19, 2016. Retrieved July 3, 2016 .
^ Dart, Chris (10 March 2016).
"The New York Times' "Future Of Music" list discusses "the era of the song" " . The A.V. Club .
Archived from the original on 9 July 2016. Retrieved 3 July 2016 .
^ Rameswaram, Sean (August 26, 2014).
"Sideshow Podcast: "Rude" by Magic! Is the Worst Best Song of the Summer" . Studio 360 .
Archived from the original on September 19, 2016. Retrieved July 3, 2016 .
^ Waldman, Paul (2018-01-25).
"Opinion | Happy Hour Roundup" . Washington Post .
Archived from the original on 2018-01-31. Retrieved 2018-02-01 .
^ Chotiner, Isaac (2018-01-26).
"I Have to Ask: The Jia Tolentino Edition" . Slate .
ISSN
1091-2339 .
Archived from the original on 2018-02-01. Retrieved 2018-02-01 .
^ Chotiner, Isaac.
"The New Yorker's Jia Tolentino on How We're Missing the Real Issue of #MeToo" . Slate Magazine .
Archived from the original on 2018-01-30. Retrieved 2018-02-01 .
^
"30 Under 30 2017: Media" . Forbes . Retrieved 2022-10-14 .
^
"The New York Times Best Sellers" . The New York Times . 2019-08-25.
Archived from the original on 2019-08-28. Retrieved 2020-08-23 .
^ Miller, Laura (2019-08-13).
"Jia Tolentino's Debut Is a Hall of Mirrors You'll Never Want to Leave" . Slate.
Archived from the original on 2020-07-26. Retrieved 2020-08-23 .
^
"Los Angeles Review of Books" . Los Angeles Review of Books . 2022-01-13. Retrieved 2023-01-30 .
^
"@jiatolentino" . Twitter . Retrieved 2023-01-30 .
^ Mogensen, Jackie Flynn.
"The New Yorker just published a major investigation into Britney Spears' conservatorship" . Mother Jones . Retrieved 2021-07-05 .
^
"¿Por qué Britney Spears llamó al 911 un día antes de la audiencia para liberarse de su tutela?" . El Heraldo de México (in Spanish). 5 July 2021. Retrieved 2021-07-05 .
^
"Chilling catch-22 of Britney's conservatorship" . NewsComAu . 2021-07-05. Retrieved 2021-07-05 .
^
"Britney Spears called 911 to report conservatorship abuse the night before court testimony" . EW.com . Retrieved 2021-07-05 .
^ Peitz, Dirk (2021-07-05).
"Das Toxische des Ruhms" .
Die Zeit . Retrieved 2021-07-05 .
^ Zukin, Meg (2023-01-12).
"Gossip Girl Recap: Truth in Cinema" . Vulture . Retrieved 2023-01-13 .
^
"2021 Class Day Speaker Jia Tolentino: An Interview" . Harvard Graduate School of Design . 2021-05-27. Retrieved 2022-02-22 .
^ Bryant, Kenzie (2019-08-05).
"Jia Tolentino Doesn't Have All the Answers" . Vanity Fair .
Archived from the original on 2021-01-31. Retrieved 6 September 2020 .
^ Tolentino, Jia (2019). Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion . Penguin Random House LLC.
External links
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