Are you a writer? Do you admire the writing of Joan Didion? Do you want to express this admiration? Here's a good way to do it: Read some Didion to yourself, and then go out and write a good essay about something, in a voice that sounds like you and reflects your era.

Can you believe it's 2014 and no one has made a documentary about Joan Didion? Neither can Griffin Dunne, Didion's very proud nephew via her late husband, John Gregory Dunne. The younger Dunne, the erstwhile director of Practical Magic, is asking the public for $80,000 to make a movie about his 79-year-old aunt (and…

The Wall Street Journal's social media editor reported today that Joan Didion was quitting Twitter. The only problem is that Joan Didion was never on Twitter, obviously.

"How much of this book is about your own life?" All novelists, even those who write about horny Centaurs or plasma cannons, have to come up with a standard response to that prickly, earnest question. As someone who has been accused of navel-gazing on the Internet, who has written a few personal essays and now has…

Author/socialite Plum Sykes and her twin sister, fashion designer/socialite Lucy Sykes Rellie are turning 40 today. Jay-Z is celebrating his 40th birthday, too. Tyra Banks turns 36. Marisa Tomei is turning 45. Saturday Night Live's Fred Armisen is 43. Actor Jeff Bridges is 60. Ugly Betty's Kevin Sussman is 39. Former…

Under almost any circumstance, it would be highly unfair to compare NYT managing editor for news Jill Abramson's new "Puppy Diaries" column to Joan Didion's masterpiece essay "Slouching Towards Bethlehem." Unless Abramson asks us to.

So earlier we were innocently reading the Sunday New York Times, happily taking in your typical "Times writer has lunch with affair-having friend" Magazine article, when things got a little, uh, disgusting.

Tonight The Daily Beast re-printed an essay George W. Bush wrote ten years ago for P.O.V. magazine to commemorate his father's birthday titled, "The First Son." Just for kicks, we ran it through some of those online writing analyzers.

It's Amanda Lepore's birthday today! At least we think it's her birthday and we think she's 41, but she's been known to fool people before. Others celebrating today: Margaret Cho is 40. The New Yorker's Calvin Trillin is 73. Novelist Joan Didion is turning 74. Little Richard is 76. Knicks center Eddy Curry is 26.…

Gucci celebrated the launch of its Tattoo Heart Collection on Wednesday, a line of products that benefits UNICEF. Rihanna, who is the new face of the campaign, was joined Gucci creative director Frida Giannini at a snowflake lighting ceremony at the Grand Army Plaza, which was followed by an event at Gucci's…

The Hollywood Reporter has info on the HBO biopic of longtime WaPo publisher Katharine Graham, who took over the paper in 1963 after her husband committed suicide. The desired casting is Laura Linney as the lead, and Joan Didion has agreed to write her first solo screenplay. The project's still in its early stage, but…

A prolific novelist, essayist, and screenwriter, Didion is considered one of America's leading intellectuals.

Doree and Nikola headed to the Puck Building last night for a Paris Review fundraiser. Their account, and photos, follow.
There are certain ways that one announces one's place in the social pecking order. Dalton or Spence. Summers in Nantucket, winters in Palm Beach. Really all out is the board of the Metropolitan…

In this week's New York, under the truly hideous, execrable, bad, unholy, unbelievable, ridiculous, breathtaking, freakishly rotten headline "What They Were Magically Thinking," is an "intimate" slideshow chronicling the rehearsal process behind the dramatization of Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking, starring…