Janna Malamud Smith is a non-fiction author of three books. She was born in Corvallis, Oregon in 1952, the second of two children born to Ann DeChiara Malamud and the writer Bernard Malamud. She grew up in Oregon, then in Bennington, Vermont, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. She received her A.B. from Harvard University in 1973, majoring in American History and Literature, and an M.S.W. in 1979 from Smith College. She practices and teaches psychotherapy in the Boston area. She is married to David Smith, and the mother of two sons.
Smith has lectured widely, and has published nationally and internationally in many newspapers, magazines and journals. She is the author of three books. The first two, Private Matters: In Defense of the Personal Life (1997) and A Potent Spell: Mother Love and the Power of Fear (2003) were both chosen as “Notable Books” by The New York Times Sunday Book Review. Her third, My Father is a Book: A Memoir of Bernard Malamud (2006) received a “starred” review from Publisher’s Weekly, was selected as a Washington Post “Best Book of the Year”, and a New York Times “Editors’ Choice”. Smith has had essays republished in Best American Essays in 2004 and 2009. She is a Lecturer in Psychology at Harvard Medical School, and on the editorial board of The Harvard Mental Health Letter. As well as teaching about psychotherapy, she teaches workshops in aspects of non-fiction writing.
Smith, Janna Malamud (1997). Private Matters: In defense of the personal life. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison Wesley. . ISBN 0201409739
Smith, Janna Malamud (2003). A Potent Spell: Mother love and the power of fear. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0618063498
Smith, Janna Malamud (2004). Private Matters: In defense of the personal life. Updated edition with new preface, and new chapter “Privacy Post-9/11.” Seal Press. paperback. ISBN 1580051073
Smith, Janna Malamud (2006). My Father is a book: a memoir of Bernard Malamud. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0618691669