Hallie ephron biography definition

  • Flawed as she was in
  • What We're Writing: Hallie's getting

    • What we're writing... Hallie introduces a character

    HALLIE EPHRON: A character I’m (still) working on for a new novel that I’ve barely begun is an elderly woman (Helen) who runs Spiritualist meetings for people who want to send messages to their dead loved ones, queued up in the astral plain waiting to send messages back. It’s easy for me to understand why people would be seduced by the notion that the dead aren’t gone gone.

    I don’t want to make Helen a fraud or a fool. Or silly or clownish. She believes she’s helping people who are dealing with loss reach that most elusive of goals: closure.

    So, I’m working and reworking paragraphs that introduce Helen to the reader, trying to take a page from the authors who’ve introduced memorable characters in the pages of their mysteries.

    Take Jane Marple, for example. Here’s how Agatha Christie described her in the “The Tuesday Night Club,” the 1927 short story in which she was first introduced:
    Miss Marple wore a black brocade dress, very much pinched in around the waist. Mechlin lace was arranged in a cascade down the front of the bodice. She had on black lace mittens, and a black lace cap surmounted the piled-up masses of her snowy hair. She was knitting, something white and fleecy. Her pale blue eyes, benignant and kindly, surveyed her nephew and her nephew’s guests with gentle pleasure.


    What’s so cool about this description is that Christie is seducing the reader, at first at least, into writing Miss M off as a ditzy old lady. Which she turns out to be anything but. What is she doing? What she’s best at: watching and listening.

    Here’s how Elizabeth George introduces Barbara Havers in A Great Deliverance:
    Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers tugged the door of the super’s office shut, walked stiffly past his secretary, and made her way into the corridor. She was white with rage.

    God! God, how dare t
    HALLIE EPHRON:It’s been so exciting, seeing our new group Reds and Readers positively explode. If you’re not a member, please feel warmly invited to join.

    Here on Jungle Red Writers I get to wrap up WHAT WE’RE WRITING week with a peek at what I’m exhuming from my computer’s depths (writers remember: NEVER THROW ANYTHING AWAY!) as I make sense of a lifetime of putting my thoughts and experiences on paper… as opposed to making it all up.

    My trip in the way-back machine took me to the first book I tried to write. It was supposed to be a novel. Fiction. Title: Guinea Pig. And finding my earliest version of it, I am shocked to discover: it’s not fiction.

    It’s all about ugly-duckling me...

    ...in junior high. And my best friend (I wanted nothing more than to be her) whose parents were wealthy, oblivious, and (almost) as dysfunctional as mine. And stuff we did.

    Here’s the opening. 

    GUINEA PIG (written years ago by Hallie Ephron)

    Growing up in Beverly Hill was always about shoes—the ones they had and I didn’t. This seems ludicrous in retrospect, because even back then I knew that the right shoes wouldn’t make me fit. And yet, in seventh grade, what I lusted after, dreamed about, was a pair of baby-blue flats with a T-strap low across the instep and three petal-shaped cutouts over the toe.

    The Shoes came from Jax, an exclusive women’s clothing store on Wilshire Boulevard, and Maryanne Wasserman and the rest of her clique had them. Sure, you could get knock-offs at Chandlers, a block away, but they weren’t soft and supple, and they didn’t flex like ballerina slippers when you wiggled your toes. Besides, even I could spot wannabe shoes. Might as well be wearing Keds with ankle socks.

    I once got as far as the front door of Jax, held my breath, and stepped inside. In the instant before toxic self-consciousness sent me into reverse, I caught a glimpse of
  • HALLIE EPHRON: A character

    • Ephron, Hallie 1948- (G. H. Ephron, A Joint Pseudonym)

    PERSONAL: Born March 9, 1948, in Los Angeles, CA; daughter of Henry (a writer) and Phoebe (a writer) Ephron; married Jerold Touger (a physics professor), May 11, 1969; children: Molly, Naomi. Education: Barnard College, B.A., 1969; New York University, M.A., 1971; Boston College, Ph.D., 1982.

    ADDRESSES: Agent—Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman Literary Agency, 1501 Broadway, Suite 2310, New York, NY 10036. E-mail—authors@peterzak. com.

    CAREER: Former school teacher and university instructor; worked in multimedia design and as a marketing copywriter; journalist; writer. Contributor to National Public Radio.

    MEMBER: Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime (president, New England chapter).


    WRITINGS:

    WITH DONALD DAVIDOFF, UNDER JOINT PSEUDONYM G. H. EPHRON

    Amnesia, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2000.

    Addiction, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2001.

    Delusion, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2002.

    Malingering, USATODAY.com (online), 2002.

    Obsessed, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2003.


    Contributor to Elements of Mystery Fiction, edited by William Tapply, revised edition, in press. Contributor to periodicals, including More magazine and Writer's Digest.

    WORK IN PROGRESS: Further medical mystery novels.

    SIDELIGHTS: Under the joint pseudonym G. H. Ephron, Hallie Ephron and Donald Davidoff have created a mystery series based on the work of forensic neuropsychologists. Davidoff himself is a professor at Harvard Medical School and a doctor at McLean Psychiatric Hospital who for years has provided expert testimony at criminal trials. Hallie Ephron—the writing specialist in the partnership—is the daughter of two prominent Hollywood screenwriters and the sister of writers Nora, Delia, and Amy Ephron. The collaboration between Ephron and Davidoff has been so successful because both bring different talents to the team. Davidoff provides plot points, chara

  • Hallie Ephron—the writing specialist in

    • Nora Ephron

    American writer and filmmaker (1941–2012)

    Nora Ephron (EF-rən; May 19, 1941 – June 26, 2012) was an American journalist, writer, and filmmaker. She is best known for writing and directing romantic comedy films and received numerous accolades including a British Academy Film Award as well as nominations for three Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award and three Writers Guild of America Awards.

    Ephron started her career writing the screenplays for Silkwood (1983), Heartburn (1986), and When Harry Met Sally... (1989), the last of which earned the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay, and was ranked by the Writers Guild of America as the 40th greatest screenplay of all-time. She made her directorial film debut with comedy-dramaThis Is My Life (1992) followed by the romantic comedies Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Michael (1996), You've Got Mail (1998), Bewitched (2005), and the biographical film Julie & Julia (2009).

    Ephron's first produced play, Imaginary Friends (2002), was honored as one of the ten best plays of the 2002–03 New York theatre season. She also co-authored the Drama Desk Award–winning theatrical production Love, Loss, and What I Wore. In 2013, Ephron received a posthumous Tony Award nomination for Best Play for Lucky Guy. She also wrote columns for Esquire, Cosmopolitan, and The New Yorker.

    Early life and education

    Ephron was born in New York City on May 19, 1941, to a Jewish family. She was the eldest of four daughters, and grew up in Beverly Hills, California. Her parents, Phoebe (née Wolkind) and Henry Ephron, were both East Coast-born playwrights and screenwriters. Her parents named her Nora after the protagonist in the play A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen. Nora's younger sisters, Delia and Amy, are also writers