Dani Shapiro is the author of five novels and the best-selling memoir Slow Motion. She has also written for magazines such as The New Yorker, The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, and ELLE.
Shapiro went to high school at The Pingry School, a prep school in New Jersey. She attended Sarah Lawrence College, where she was influenced by having Grace Paley as a teacher. Shapiro has also written for the screen, having adapted Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince for HBO in 1999. In 2000, she co-wrote a screenplay based on her memoir, Slow Motion, with her husband, journalist and screenwriter Michael Maren. She is currently a professor of creative writing at Wesleyan University and was previously an instructor at The New School and Columbia University.