Liz Gilbert

After studying at New York University, Gilbert graduated in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. After several short-term jobs, including working as a cook on a dude ranch, she got her first big break when her story "Pilgrims" was published in Esquire in 1993. It was an impressive start and led to further work as a freelance journalist for The New York Times, SPIN and many more publications. Her work often drew on her own life experiences, including "The Muse of the Coyote Ugly Saloon," a 1997 GQ article about her time spent working in a table top dancing bar in New York. Gilbert then focused on fiction. Her collection of short stories, Pilgrims, featured a mix of new and previously published material, and was published in 1997. This was followed by her debut novel Stern Men in 2000. In the same year, the aforementioned GQ article was loosely adapted into the film "Coyote Ugly" (2000) starring Piper Perabo, Andy Garcia, John Goodman, and Tyra Banks. It wasn't well received by the critics but was a reasonable box office success debuting at number four and going to make almost $114 million worldwide. 2002 saw Gilbert return to her journalist roots with the publication of The Last American Man, a biography of naturalist and 'mountain man' Eustace Conway. The book was a finalist in both the National Book Awards and the National Book Critic's Circle Award. 2002 also saw Gilbert divorce her first husband Michael Cooper, and spend the next year traveling around Europe and Asia funded by a $200,000 advance from her publisher. The trip became the basis for the autobiographical Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia (2006). Praised for its honesty and humor, Oprah Winfrey went as far as devoting two shows to Gilbert in 2007. It became a publishing phenomenon; the book remained on the New York Times best seller list for 187 weeks and earned her a place in Time magazine's annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world in 2008. Unsurprisingly considering the success of the book, the inevitable film adaptation was released in 2010, with Julia Roberts playing Gilbert. Despite mixed reviews from the critics it debuted at number two in the American box-office charts. Gilbert released a sequel in 2010; Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage continued the story of her relationship with the Brazilian referred to as 'Felipe' she had met in Bali (played by Javier Bardem in "Eat Pray Love") after her return to America. The reviews weren't quite as glowing, but the book still went on to spend 57 weeks at the top of the New York Times nonfiction best seller list. In 2013, Gilbert published her first novel in 13 years, The Signature of All Things.