Anne Fadiman, a New York City native raised in Connecticut and Los Angeles, was born on August 7, 1953. She is the daughter of Clifton Fadiman and author Annalee Jacoby Fadiman. She is a Harvard graduate with a bachelor of arts degree. She now lives with her husband and two kids in Massachusetts and serves as the Francis Writer-In-Residence at Yale

      She has written two essay books, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader (1998) and At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays (2007). She has been a writer at Life, Civilization, and editor of The American Scholar. 

     The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down has won several awards including the 1997 National Book Critics Circle Award, the Salon Book Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest.