Tuesday, June 7, 2016

TAMA JANOWITZ'S ICONIC "SLAVES OF NEW YORK" - 30 YR. ANNIVERSARY AND NEW MEMOIR:

“Tama is a very exceptional writer. And she’s so observant, and such a sort of master at the milieu of the life she talks about.”     ~ Ismail Merchant ~ 

"But Gaga is also gentle and brave, more resolute than any I’ve met before. I think—I know—the summits she has reached, while not removed from epic tribulations, are assuredly her very own Mt. Olympus, and she our bright-eyed Athena, a goddess to be admired—and protected."                  
 
 LADY GAGA READING SLAVES  ~ OCT.  2016     
"Lady Gaga is a huge fan of Tama's!" Cited Tama's former publicist at HarperCollins, Joseph Papa on The Stack Podcast in May 2019.
       GAGA AND TAMA
Craig Jamison (screenwriter and webmaster) writes: 
Regardless of background every creative soul has the liberating moment upon realization that they aren't as alone as originally thought, but in actuality part of a larger group of kin one never knew existed - an artisitc / communal "Land of Misfit Toys" (so to speak) within a cookie-cutter world of (so-called) normality. Discovering TAMA JANOWITZ, and in particular her now iconic story collection, SLAVES OF NEW YORK, was such a defining moment for us. 
                                                                                              NEW YORK MAGAZINE
While set in New York's mid 1980s art world - when and where Warhol ruled, Hip Hop was in its infancy, and books like Ellis' LESS THAN ZERO and McInerney's BRIGHT LIGHTS BIG CITY became the war cry of a generation, SLAVES and Janowitz also raged against the machine, but in a much more humorous, perceptive and poignant manner. 

Her quirky tone (the descriptive "Lewis Carroll meets Kurt Vonnegut" is oddly apropos) made her work approachable, identifiable, and (most importantly) enjoyable enough to similarly touch others in other cities around the world just as it had us, and has also allowed it to maintain a timeless quality while (with all due respects) some of those other literary best sellers have since begun to show their age.


The icon of a generation (her frequent appearances on LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN were particularly charming and hilarious as the two shared a similar dry wit), we've also always admired Janowitz as a literary workhorse who, unlike many, constantly produces new material - be it her popular pieces for the New Yorker, the screenplay adaptation of her own SLAVES OF NEW YORK,  or eleven books (fiction and non fiction) over the course of her career. 
 
David Letterman enjoys a kiss with Tama on live TV 1987. (Click pic to enlarge.)
 


Tama appeared seven times on David Letterman, as well as Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect, Late Show with Joan Rivers, Charlie Rose (<-- click here for interview), Conan O'Brien, CNN, Good Morning America, The Today Show, The Jonathan Ross Show - The Last Resort, Pat Sajak, MTV co-host of 120 Minutes, MTV - Andy Warhol's 15 Minutes, VH1, Ch 4 NBC News, starred in the first 'literary video' ever shown on MTV and HBO, Larry King, UK Music TV - 'The Tube', BBC Late Show w/Chris Hitchens, De laatste show -2001, Cameo in Sandra Bullock film, 'A Fool and His Money', supporting role in her movie Slaves of New York, Bravo Network's new scripted series - Brian Dannelly's "True Fiction" cameo. A clue on Jeopardy 6 times, and referenced in numerous Films and TV shows including: The Carrie Diaries, Ashton Kutcher as [Steve] Jobs 2013, The Critic, The Gilmore Girls, and It's Like You Know. Appeared as a clue in the New York Times Crossword puzzle dozens of times over 3 decades as well as WSJ, The Washington Post, The Week and many others around the world. 
 

The Seductive Legend of NY Writer-Author-Screenwriter-Celebrity-Fashionista Tama Janowitz; Am I jealous? Yes. Click here for article.   By: Theresa Griffin Kennedy 2022

 BRAVO NETWORK'S "TRUE FICTION" - 2017 
TAMA (CAMEO) AND DIRECTOR/WRITER BRIAN DANNELLY
 
SONY Zipper Photo by: Jill Abrams 





TAMA AND JILL - CAME BACK IN FOR MY BIG BDAY!




 
Tama's eleventh book published by HarperCollins/Dey Street Books, SCREAM: A MEMOIR OF GLAMOUR AND DYSFUNCTION.  <-- CLICK HERE TO BUY.
TAMA JANOWITZ can be contacted on Facebook.
 
“It’s fun to read about the people you know disguised under other names,” says Andy Warhol. “It’s like, not a fantasy, but I mean, somebody you really know and you can sort of read between the lines… You’ll probably be in her next book. I’m sure I’m coming up.”    

      ANDY WARHOL AND TAMA JANOWITZ  
       Meet twice a week for their 'Blind Date Club'. 
 

 Love Dianne Brill! Such a bright magical light. A true icon like my pal Tama. 
 
 
"What once described the mere aesthetic of being sartorially sleek and stylish, chic can now be effectively applied to the aura of a person, object, or action. It is nebulous, intangible, impossible to define. Mix all of this with an invite to every party and an eye that can capture the scene, whether from centrestage (Babitz) or cooly gazing from the sidelines (Didion), the result is a chic writer. Many writers once donned this specific cloak of chicness: James Baldwin, Tama Janowitz, Djuna Barnes, Oscar Wilde." 
DAZED Magazine 2022
 
 
Greatest facebook validation from the extraordinary Fenton Bailey of RuPaul and World of Wonder excellence. RIP Joan Rivers. 

Amazing photo by John William I cut out and dropped into NYC.
 

 
Rachel Louise Atkin -2021 Slaves of NY promo video.
 
 
Fans worldwide I cut out and dropped into fictional graffitied streets.



 
SLAVES OF NEW YORK inspires designers at Paris Fashion Week 2017. "The label was all about female empowerment this season.Robert Clergerie's CEO Eva Taub  and creative director Roland Mouret studied SLAVES OF NEW YORK and its female characters for inspiration which follows the lives of struggling artists in New York City during the mid-1980s.  Read FN article here
 

“Three decades after the publication Slaves of New York, Janowitz remains as smart, sharp-edged and socially astute as ever."
LIBRARY JOURNAL REVIEWS


 
“Tama Janowitz is a clever writer, laugh-out-loud funny, and wonderfully sharp.”
THE WASHINGTON POST


 
“So savagely witty, so acerbic, so piercingly accurate… Tama Janowtiz has a merciless eye for absurdity.”
LOS ANGELES HERALD EXAMINER



Tama's Clio Award winning (Oscar of the Ad world) PowerBook campaign for Apple

"If there were a literary equivalent to a new Talking Heads album, Slaves of New York would be that book." 
MADEMOISELLE


“The shrewd observation, the skewed invention… are the work of a singular talent.”
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW





"The whole reason I started writing about the downtown arts scene was because that's where I happened to start meeting people and making friends. I found out you could go to these gallery openings on Saturday afternoon without an invitation, and there would be drinks and food, a party. People were very accepting." 
TAMA JANOWITZ
                                                          
“There’s a new girl working the Zeitgeist with an ironic intelligence and new-wave sensibility unparalleled among contemporary chroniclers of postmodern life.”
                                                               
KIRKUS REVIEWS

TAMA FEATURED IN MARVEL COMICS


“Nimble, satisfyingly nasty, wholly unexpected, chaotic and smart-ass but precocious, indefatigable, funny, and somehow optimistic. Hey that’s life in a Janowitz book.”
BOOKLIST


 

 
Tama received great reviews for her supporting role in Slaves of New York. So beautiful with her green eyes and iconic mane. 


Tama wrote the screenplay and also appeared in the Merchant Ivory film SLAVES OF NEW YORK starring Bernadette Peters. 


Andy Warhol commissioned Tama to write the screenplay with an offer of $5000.00 or a painting. Her need to eat left her no choice but to choose the money. Sadly, Warhol died a year later. The script was bought from the Warhol estate by Merchant Ivory Productions.



Tama received her bachelor's degree from Barnard College where she graduated cum laude in 1977, a master's in writing from Hollins College two years later, attended the Yale University School of Drama for play writing from 1980 to 1981. In 1985 she received her M.F.A. degree of fine arts in writing from Columbia University and she spent the 1986 - 1987 academic year at Princeton University as an Alfred Hodder Fellow in the Humanities.



                                          




"Janowitz is the author of ''Slaves of New York'', a hot, hip, best-selling collection of short stories about the East Village art scene. And she`s also the star of the very first literary video. This is the first time in the history of Western civilization that a book has been sold on MTV. The first time since Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press that an author has been peddled like a rock star." Click for article here.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE


Why Tama Janowitz traded NYC fame-culture for life upstate. Aug 2016
Click here for NEW YORK POST article.


                                                                                                   INTERVIEW Magazine


"Candace [Bushnell] is the Tama Janowitz of the 90s, " said Darren Star, the creator of Sex and The City, 90210, Melrose Place and the fab series Younger.




Interview with Tama Janowitz @ White Hot Magazine
Click here for interview.


KCRW 'Bookworm' 1992 Radio interview with Tama Janowitz.   
Click here for interview.






 CINDY ADAMS of Page Six New York Post - "Misfit Tama’s “Scream” is sharp. And hilarious."Click here for article:



'Tama Janowitz on Andy Warhol and the Rolling Stones.'




"...grim, and hilarious, Janowitz's primal SCREAM exposes...the highs and lows of her writing life, and the boons and traumas of fame and love.” Read full BOOKLIST review of SCREAM here.                                                        

Tama Janowitz on What It's Really Like to be an Empty Nester - 2017.  Click here for TOWN AND COUNTRY article.


Tama co-hosts MTV's popular segment "120 minutes" with Kevin Seal in 1987. Click to watch YOUTUBE video here.


"Tama became a model with Vidal Sassoon hair salons in London and New York 1975 - 78. Since the publication of her first novel, "American Dad," at age 23, she captured media headlines, as much for her flamboyant personality and notoriety as friend to late Andy Warhol as for her post-modernist fiction...

  TAMA WITH MOTHER PHYLLIS

... As fodder for the gossip columns, Tama learned first hand what it means to go from relative obscurity to celebrity status. She became more than a young writer with a success on her hands -- she became an icon of New York's kinetic night life."                                                   
Astro Bio

YALE SCHOOL OF DRAMA

  MTV - ANDY WARHOL'S 15 MINUTES

                                   

 PEOPLE MAGAZINE 1986 and 1987


                                                                                 TAMA AND JOAN RIVERS  -  FEB. 1987

TAMA AND BILL MAHER - AUG. 17TH,1999
AWARDS, HONORS: Breadloaf Writers' Conference Prize in 1975, Elizabeth Janeway Fiction Prize in 1976 and 1977, Amy Loveman Prize for poetry in 1977, Hollins College fellowship in 1978, National Endowment for the Arts grants in 1982 and 1986, Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines/General Electric Foundation Award in 1984, Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation Award in 1985, Alfred Hodder Fellow in the Humanities, Princeton University in 1986 - 87.


 “Introduced as the next Truman Capote” - Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church
 
 
                                                      Click pictures to enlarge.        

                                               
"If you spend even five minutes with Tama, there is no denying that her voice—and the workings of her brain—is singular. I found her simultaneously intelligent, complex, funny, and a little wounded in the way that makes you fall in love with her the way you would a heroine in a French nouvelle vague film."
ARTICLE HERE: http://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/tama-janowitz/
                                                    
INTERVIEW MAGAZINE 2016 - By: Molly Ringwald



"She has a poet's eye and a surgeon's scalpel and wields them both in lines that refuse to take prisoners."
JAMES ANDERSON - AUTHOR - THE NEVER-OPEN DESERT DINER

MTV - CO-HOSTING 120 MINUTES ~ 1987
“A true original.”
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
             
"Filled with a very real, very personal cast of characters, Scream is an intimate, scorching memoir rife with the humor, insight, and experience of a writer with a surgeon’s eye for detail, and a skill for cutting straight to the strangest parts of life.."    SCREAM  available on AMAZON:
                                          


Long after the bomb falls and you and your good deeds are gone, cockroaches will still be here, prowling the streets like armored cars.
TAMA JANOWITZ


“The pleasure of “Scream” rests almost entirely in Janowitz’s voice and her shy bewilderment at her own disappointing fate. In this sense, it’s very much like her best fiction, which has always drawn from autobiographical material about hapless, disaster-prone women. Janowitz’s account of all this is not self-pitying but quite funny, in the David Sedaris tradition.” ARTICLE: Click here. 
THE WASHINGTON POST


CLICK PHOTOS AND THEY ENLARGE - SCROLL THROUGH WITH ARROW KEYS.



If you have ever wondered what it would be like to live a day as Tama Janowitz, resident Lit Girl and acclaimed author of Slaves of New York, here is your chance. In this fantastic mid-life memoir, Tama details everything from her mother’s dementia to her daughter’s angsty teenage years.”
BRIT + CO: 16 Must-Read Adult Books Out in August


"I consider every moment of my life spent unaware of the existence of novelist Tama Janowitz a complete and utter waste of consciousness... I would build a city of pearl and onyx for Tama Janowitz with my own raw and useless hands."
Mallory Ortberg, The Toast


“I’ve gone memoir mad this year. Tama Janowitz’s demented confessional Scream is a bridge-burning rampage through her magnificently odd life. This is an eye-popping read, seemingly written with her fists. At the end she’s waiting to find out whether she’s going to be sent to jail. I hope she is – she’s hilarious, and her take on life on the inside would be a riot.”                                                                                
SUNDAY HERALD SCOTLAND



Tama Janowitz offers this hilarious self-portrait of the artist as confused, middle-aged enfant terrible. Alternating between the tragicomic chaos of her current circumstances and glimpses back at a fraught childhood and glittering youth, Janowitz's tale is intimate and self-deprecatingly charming. Click here for BUST.COM review of SCREAM.



In 1987, Tama's SLAVES OF NEW YORK sold 50,000 hardback copies at $15.95 - ten times more than the average sale of a  first novel and 120,000 paperback at $6.95 compared with the usual 100,00 copies sold at $3.95 for a top seller. Over a million copies sold worldwide.
FORBES


'Tama Janowitz: 'It's ridiculous to argue with idiots -- As her memoir is published, the New York writer looks back on 35 years of literary life and feuds in the big apple.'


The irreverence of an author who’s desperate for money but still won’t submit to expectations is thrilling... Scenes from the end of [mother] Phyllis’s life are genuinely moving. Janowitz captures, with startling eloquence.
THE GUARDIAN

Tim and Tama

TIM & TAMA

 
Tama with husband Tim Hunt, young fashion model turned agent of the Andy Warhol Foundation for prints and photographs. He had worked for the Warhol Estate, organizing and cataloging Warhol’s possessions for the Sotheby’s auction which generated $23m, ultimately funding the Foundation where he flourished.
 

"There is an admirable spirit of rebellion here, an unwillingness to buy the notion of unhappy success that McInerney is still attempting to sell. Andy Warhol, after all, was a creature of “downtown” Manhattan par excellence. But Janowitz’s eagerness to pre­sent her alliance with him as transactional is refreshing. She is also acutely sensitive to the way that power inflects and informs the making of art." THE NATION
 
 
On Instagram and various sites I found celebrities and fans alike dressing as Tama Janowitz for 80s theme parties. Above is Allison Sarofim and below is Cynthia Rowley. These are still frames from an animated SONY promo video I created. Cut outs superimposed in front of cool street art.
 



MUSES AND VISIONARIES - BY ERIN ROSSITTO

*Always updating this site with new Tama happenings and cool finds. Most everything on this page was sent to me from Tama whose mother saved all her press in the attic. I received over 25 boxes. It was a blast to read and scan. So proud of my incredible friend.   

'What should you read this summer? Stephen King -- and more.' "SCREAM - better check this out, we're too old to relive it in any other way." Click here for MIAMI HERALD review.


"She becomes a virtual member of the working class and her reportage from the front lines of Obamacare and doughnuts is striking. There was a prescient line in Janowitz’s best-known book, Slaves of New York: “I had never, in my wackiest dream, imagined that I would grow up to be a poor person.” In the end, Scream reminds you of Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London (one of her favorites).... 


...It’s a real blast, and could be the best political book on America published this election year. Funny and appalling, to hear her tell it. But then Scream opens out into another kind of book altogether. The real privations and tribulations Janowitz describes among the people that are now her neighbors (and lovers) are more than a match for the anarchy of her own family, and this is down to the American economic disaster and the palpable lack of education. " Click for article.                                                                                                                                                                                
THE NATIONAL - INDEPENDENT SCOTLAND




Author Tama Janowitz discusses her novel, "A Certain Age," about a young woman in NYC in the 90's. Entire 8/2/1999 television interview with Charlie Rose.  Click here to watch interview.





Tama has written often for TRAVEL + LEISURE,  traveling the world with her friends and daughter Willow. 'I'd Rather Be in the Amazon - Tama Janowitz finds bliss, bartering -- and perhaps her next novel -- in a Peruvian jungle retreat.' Click here for TRAVEL + LEISURE article written by Tama.


Spy Magazine had an obsessive interest in Tama, like grade school boys yanking her pigtails.



"She with her latest book 'Scream: A Memoir of Glamour and Dysfunction, Tama Janowitz ultimately proves, with humor, exasperation, tears and a vibrant spectrum of other emotions, that she, like tungsten, could be thrust into white-hot fire and emerge even stronger."  ARTICLE: Click here.
UPSTATE DIARY 


'Sex, Drugs, and Bestsellers: The Legend of the Literary Brat Pack.' - Nov. 2016 Click here for HARPER'S BAZAAR article.


"It’s a great long shaggy dog yarn of the sort you’d love to hear your most raconteurish friend tell over dinner." BEST BOOKS OF 2016 - CIVILIAN. Click here for SCREAM review.

  


  2016 W Magazine feature -"Tama Janowitz is Bored with Glamour" :       
  http://www.wmagazine.com/story/tama-janowitz-is-bored-with-glamour


TAMA IS ONE OF WARHOL'S "STITCHED" PHOTOGRAPHS
SCREAM by Tama Janowitz: "7 Books We're Reading This Fall" - Good for: Neurotic humorists, Andy Warhol fans, those who wish they lived in New York in the early ’80s (or actually did), caretakers of elderly parents. Why: Against all odds, considering the subject matter, this book his hilarious.
THE M DASH


TAMA AND BERNADETTE PETERS



“The aptly named SCREAM is a gripping family feud fest. Devour with relish.” 
NORTH AND SOUTH MAGAZINE - March 2017


"Whether I'm critically well received, whether or not I sell books - of course it becomes progressively harder to get them published - nevertheless, it's what I do, every day."
TAMA JANOWITZ                                                                                                      

GIRARD BASQUIAT, father of JEAN-MICHEL portraying TAMA'S Cannibal in Manhattan
 
"I did not write books to be liked. I was not interested in writing likeable books. I was not interested in providing the reader with a hero or heroine with whom she or he could identify, who had to overcome obstacles and in the end triumphed."  TAMA JANOWITZ



"Janowitz is a talented writer with a sharply observational eye and keen wit."     POPMATTERS
                                                                              



"I wasn't writing about 'nice' people or people who were redeemed," Janowitz states about her early work. "I found rotten people to be more interesting. What made them the way they were."      THE LOS ANGELES TIMES



“When Tama Janowitz released Slaves of New York in 1986, she became an instant literary celebrity. Thirty years and eight books later, she's back in the spotlight with SCREAM, a sharp memoir that follows her life from '80s excess to a calmer, though no less astutely observed, present day."
TOWN AND COUNTRY
 

"Every book I write, the media just keeps punching me in the face."
TAMA JANOWITZ

PHOTOGRAPHED BY ANNIE LEIBOVITZ
"SCREAM's final chapters, dealing with her beloved mother’s death, are harrowing and heartrending, as are nearly all of the sections about their often fraught but enduring and loving relationship."                        THE LOS ANGELES TIMES 
                                                              



"So thank you, 'It Girl DJ' Mia Moretti, in a direct line from Holly Golightly, via Edie Sedgwick, Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan, Fabulous Nobodies, Tama Janowitz and Carrie Bradshaw, you are keeping the kooky Manhattan party girl fantasy alive for all of us."
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD      







"These hip young scribes, whose crackling prose captured the ephemeral urban zeitgeist of a decade populated by disaffected denizens and their loaded ambitions, drug habits and artsy pretensions, blossomed into full-blown media celebrities."    THE BUFFALO NEWS.  Click here for article.


"What the book does offer is insight into the transgressive mind of a true literary talent. As strange as Janowitz views the wacky hijinks and characters surrounding her, so too is the reader entertained and left aghast by the trials and tribulations of a person NY magazine once aptly described as a “magnet for calamity.” Reading the words she lays upon the page, it seems as though Janowitz has never quite understood the way human society works. So she approaches her writing like an alien anthropologist."
HYPERALLERGIC



Tama Janowitz offers this hilarious self-portrait of the artist as a confused, middle-aged enfant terrible. Alternating between the tragicomic chaos of her current circumstances and glimpses back at a fraught childhood and glittering youth, Janowitz’s tale is intimate and self-deprecatingly charming."                                                
BUST MAGAZINE
 

Janowitz: This year’s superstar of literary Manhattan a headliner of authors fest.  

THE GAZETTE TORONTO ~ 1987



 "Janowitz is to Gen X what Lena Dunham is to millennials."                           
MUSES AND VISIONARIES      
 








'Musing Over a Memoir by a Chronicler of the Downtown New York Art Scene - Tama Janowitz has emerged from seclusion to debut her first memoir SCREAM.' - Click this link for 2016 HYPERALLERGIC interview with Tama.



"This memoir from a member of the literary brat pack of the go-go '80s is resplendent with "I was there" celeb gossip, familial pain, and hard-earned humor."                                                                                          
O Magazine   
                           
DEBBIE HARRY AND TAMA
                                                                    


Janowitz, who wrote “Slaves of New York,” calls McInerney, author of “Bright Lights, Big City,” an “idiot” in the Guardian. “I remember being so, so upset because Jay McInerney was interviewed, and he said how terrible it was that an author does an ad: ‘Tama Janowitz did ads, an author who does ads is a whore,’ ” Janowitz said. Asked if she had ever confronted McInerney, she replied, “No, it’s ridiculous to argue with idiots.” ARTICLE: http://pagesix.com/2016/08/30/authors-tama-janowitz-and-jay-mcinerney-ignite-feud/
                                            
NEW YORK POST - PAGE SIX - RICHARD JOHNSON






'10 Things We Learned From Lady Gaga's Howard Stern Interview' - she is reading SLAVES OF NEW YORK - 2016.  Cick for BILLBOARD Magazine article.


'MAKING HIS MARC' - Famed designer Marc Jacobs talks with author Tama Janowitz about their 80's heyday in New York, his collaboration with Tabboo!, and how he stays sane three decades in the business.  Click here for HARPER'S BAZAAR interview.


BRITANNICA ENCYCLOPEDIA - LITERATURE: YEAR IN REVIEW 2016. Notable works of autobiography include: Scream: A Memoir of Glamour and Dysfunction by Tama Janowitz, best known for her iconic short-story collection Slaves of new York. (1986)


Beautiful Vimeo video of husband Tim Hunt (of the Andy Warhol Foundation) and Tama in 2013 'Wantful - The Art of Giving.' Click here for video interview.









                                                                                            HARPER'S BAZAAR - FEB. 2016



"The Tama Janowitz origin story—the wild-haired, wacky young woman who became the poster girl of downtown New York almost overnight with the publication of her era-defining story collection Slaves of New York in 1986—continues to seduce new generations of women... 


...It would be unsympathetic and untrue to say that Janowitz lives for life's floggings, but tragedy is material. In SCREAM, the death of her mother is the emotional center of the book. As she has always done, Janowitz inoculates this string of misfortunes with a steady stream of distant self-deprecation that often tips over into self-immolation."                                                                                                                                                                          
                                                                          W Magazine


BUZZFEED '5 Fall Memoirs by Women You Should Add To Your Reading List - SCREAM - This time Tama turns the criticism on herself and offers insight, humor and detail in a way that’s not afraid to touch on the strange parts of life.' Click for review.

 
“I have never really gotten over that evaluation of my appearance. I'm not joking, I have spent my whole life reminding myself: you look like the man playing 'grandpa' on 'The Munsters'. I want to know what female would not be crippled by that physical public evaluation of her appearance?"


"It's been a weird, very difficult objectification to have accepted - it was in my twenties - I always tried to be a good sport about it. Toads are beautiful, and frogs are beautiful too, but, if someone tells you, when you are young, that's what you look like, well, it's crippling. But, too late now. I will always see myself as a twin to an old bald guy. Seriously, when you're in your twenties, trying to be a writer, and you're female, being evaluated for your physical appearance rather than your writing, it's peculiar.”

TAMA JANOWITZ  


“Janowitz writes tenderly of her mother, describing her descent into dementia with clear eyes and their close bond with real heart. Just about everyone else she openly dislikes — including herself.”
THE BOSTON GLOBE


"I made up my mind I was going to be poor, but I knew it was a better situation than waking up early every morning and having to put on stockings and work for eight hours under fluorescent lights."         
TAMA JANOWITZ      


Dispatches from the Literary 'It Girl' of the '80s, TAMA JANOWITZ - The Leonard Lopate Show - Aug. 2016 - WNYC. Click here for Podcast. 
                                                                                                                                                     


"Her wry, edgy writing style coupled with her clinical knack for minimalism launches her to the top of every lit-lover's must-read list, with SCREAM as no exception. Drawing parallels between her city life of the 1980s and her current life in a small upstate town, Janowitz's memoir is powerful stuff, the kind of addictive summer read you'll knock out in just a few poolside days."              
HAMPTON SHEET                                                                                                         
PEOPLE MAGAZINE

BROAD STREET - Weekend Reading : My Little Pony a memoir by Tama Janowitz. July 2016  Click here to read article.


NEW YORK MAGAZINE profile of Tama: AUG. 8, 2016 "Tama Janowitz Is No Longer a Slave to New York." Click here for article.

“Sometimes so-called 'rags to riches' tales can quickly shift to navel gazing. Ms. Janowitz stays clear of that by balancing stories of her successes with brutal honesty.”   
PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE
                     



                   
            "New York is vicious to its successes."
Tama Janowitz 
                              

"The most affecting moments come when Janowitz reflects on her now deceased poet mother's impact on her life and career."                            
PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY                                                                                                 
SLAVES OF NEW YORK -- 2 WEEKS ON NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLERS LIST
"Something bad is always happening to former literary 'it girl' TAMA JANOWITZ. The author of 'Slaves of New York' dishes on male reviewers, passing fame, and the satire of bad luck." Click here for TABLET - 2013 article.

PRODUCER ISMAIL MERCHANT AND DIRECTOR JAMES IVORY - SLAVES OF NEW YORK

'Warhol's Bazaar years - Andy Warhol launched his career with illustrations like HARPER'S BAZAAR. Here his close friend reflects on why Andy is so missed today.' 2007  Read HARPER'S BAZAAR article on Andy Warhol written by Tama.

TAMA'S 6TH TIME AS A CLUE - APRIL 24TH, 2017
TAMA ON THE SET OF BRAVO NETORK'S 'TRUE FICTION' - RELEASE 2017

SANTA READING SLAVES OF NEW YORK - HAPPY HOLIDAYS

NOV. 6, 2016- WASHINGTON POST -- ANSWER : TAMA
FEB. 10, 2017 - WALL STREET JOURNAL -- ANSWER : TAMA
FEB. 2, 2017 - NEW YORK TIMES -- ANSWER : TAMA

Variety TV Critics Discuss The Legacy and Impact of 'Girls': "You're so right about this being the Tama Janowitz novel of its time. Who has the time to read the hot new novelist's take on what the cool people are doing in NYC? But we can watch this show and feel at least partially informed about what the Youngs are up to."                                     VARIETY.COM

MAY 31, 2017 - LENA DUNHAM INSTAGRAM POST ON TAMA
DECEMBER 6, 2017
DECEMBER 1, 2017


 
 
Famed designer Marc Jacobs talks with author Tama Janowitz about their '80s heyday in New York in August 2016 - Harper's Bazaar
 

Brat Pack Author Tama Janowitz Redefines Pretty with the Help of Gucci. 2019


WHO IS TAMA JANOWITZ?
Edited by: Jill Abrams

 TAMA JANOWITZ ~ ENTERTAINMENT NEWS 1996   

So proud of my sister Tama Janowitz!


 

In early Oct. 2022, an unknown European art gallery presented over 100 Andy Warhol screen prints for sale asking 25-35k each. They claim to have purchased the complete collection of Tim Hunt and wife Tama Janowitz. According to Tama, there is no possibility that they owned even a single Warhol print. Warhol expert Ron Rivlin of LA Revolver Gallery weighed in, noting that the oddly colored prints were counterfeits with obvious forgeries. The gallery was thrown off of liveauctioneers and the case has been turned over to the FBI. Please beware of these Warhol items attributed to Tama’s family. No individual or entity purchased the collection of Tim Hunt and Tama Janowitz. Any questions, please contact TAMA JANOWITZ on Facebook.

   Tama is a clue in THE NEW YORK TIMES Sunday Magazine - October 4, 2020                 (*Click pictures to enlarge them.)






"This new book is as deadpan-weird and hilarious as all her best writing, like a conversation with—if not a friend, a person you’d LIKE to befriend." Read Katie Haegele's SCREAM review here. July, 2017: 
 

KNIGHT, HILARY. B.1926. Original watercolor on board, "Christmas Dinner at Maxime de la Falaise's," Tama Janowitz (bottom left) ogles a wine-drinking Marcel Proust, reading her Slaves of New York. Hilary is best known as the illustrator of Kay Thompson's Eloise and others in the Eloise series. Illustration for sale on Bonhams.
 
Beautiful fans from around the world I cut out and superimposed over street art backdrops for a Slaves of New York promotional video.


Adorable fan dressing as Tama Janowitz for Halloween.




Tama wearing my classic Shepard Fairey OBEY Records t-shirt. Tama and her boyfriend live on a magnificent ranch with stables which house her 2 mares Fox and Jez. 

 
Still frame from John Carpenter's 1994 classic 'In The Mouth of Madness' - a book signing with one patron carrying Tama's iconic Slaves of New York.

 
 For inside cover of Italian SLAVES OF NY reprint. By: JILL ABRAMS 2024

Wall Street Journal clue February 3, 2024
 
It's an honor to be Tama's archivist and dearest pal.  ~ Jill Abrams 2024 (First met in 1992)





2024 Reissue of SLAVES OF NEW YORK in Italy. Schiavi Di New York. 


Thanks to the gorgeous and talented Kristy Garett for sending this footage and photo from Italy.