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Author
Biography
Lauren
Slater is a psychologist and writer. She is the author of
six books, including Welcome
To My Country, Lying, A Metaphorical
Memoir, Opening Skinner's Box,
and Blue Beyond Blue, a collection
of short stories. Slater's most recent book publication
is Best American Essays, 2006,
for which she served Guest Editor.
Slater's
2004 Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments
of the Twentieth Century, a description of psychology experiments
"narrated as stories," has drawn both praise and
criticism. It was nominated for a Los Angeles Times Kirsch
Award for science and technology writing, and won the 2005
Bild Der Wissenschaft Award in Germany for the most groundbreaking
science book of the year. Opening
Skinner's Box caused an international controversy powered
mostly by academic psychologists and psychiatrists who feel
Slater did a grave disservice to the field by narrating
academic experiments in plain prose. On the other hand,
Opening Skinner's Box, along
with several other of her books, have become mainstays in
academic courses that range from psychology to memoir writing
to literary criticism. The broad and persistent use of her
books in colleges across the country point to Slater's breadth
and depth as a writer and illuminate her capacity to touch
on issues central to the culture we live in.
Slater
has been the recipient of numerous awards, amongst them
a 2004 National Endowments for the Arts Award, and multiple
inclusions in Best American Volumes, and A Knight Science
Journalism Fellowship at The Massachusetts Institute For
Technology. Slater is also a frequent contributor to The
New York Times Magazine, Harper's Magazine, and Elle Magazine,
amongst others. She has been nominated several times for
National Magazine Awards in both the Essay and the Profile
category.
Slater
was a practicing psychologist for 11 years before embarking
on a full-time writing career. She served as the Clinical
and then the Executive Director Of AfterCare Services, and
under her watch the company grew from a small inner city
office to a vibrant outpatient clinic servicing some of
Boston's most socio-economically stressed population.
After the
birth of her daughter, Slater wrote her memoir Love
Works Like This to chronicle the agonizing decisions
she made relating to her psychiatric illness and her pregnancy.
In a 2003 BBC Woman's Hour radio interview, and a 2005 article
in Child Magazine, Slater provides information on depression
during pregnancy and the risks to the woman and her baby.
Slater
is a much sought after speaker and reader. Most recently
she was a John Dewey Honors Program speaker at The University
Of Vermont and the keynote speaker at The University of
Iowa's Non Fiction Writing Conference.
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