Gawker: ned vizzini

Ned Vizzini's Top 4 Antidepressants

Emily Gould — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 14:40:45 EST

No wonder YA author Ned Vizzini posted such a crazy help-wanted ad on Craigslist: he is super crazy! Apparently an official website, a blog, a MySpace and several books could not contain all his deep thoughts about his own craziness, because he recently moderated a panel about "Straight Talk About Antidepressants" over at Siren magazine. Ned says he has been prescribed Wellbutrin, Zoloft, and Effexor over the years, but he's currently happily dosed with so-hot-right-now Lamictal. It's made him feel "a lot better," but he does worry that, when he gets older, it might cause him to have "flipper babies." Now that's a Babble essay we can't wait to read!

Straight Talk About Anti-Depressants [Siren]
Earlier: Ned Vizzini Is The Park Slope Craigslist Novelist
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Ned Vizzini Found Himself A Female Assistant!

Emily Gould — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 16:37:53 EST

Good news for twentysomething teen phenom Ned Vizzini! Remember his search for an assistant on Craigslist? Well, he found one. Her name's Catherine (we think Cathy with a C not Kathy with a K) and, from what we can tell from her phone manner, she meets Ned's requirement that his assistant be "female." She also sounds young and, frankly, scared: "I don't think he'd want me talking to you about that. Why don't you just email him?" she quavered when we asked the most harmless of questions. She's also, apparently, lazy: she still hasn't gotten around to updating the press section of Ned's Official Website, which we'd suggested should be her first duty! We think there are a couple new clips that should go in there, Cathy.

Earlier: Ned Vizzini Is The Craigslist Park Slope Novelist

David Seaman To Ned Vizzini: Douch!

Emily Gould — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 13:31:02 EST

As we delved into the "Ned Vizzini looks for a female assistant on Craigslist" scandal, one tipster's email stood out from the rest. David Seaman is the "author" (we're thinking "compiler" is probs more accurate, but hey, you be the judge!) of The Real Meaning of Life, an anthology of random messageboard postings on that topic. He just wanted to make sure we had all the info before we judged Ned too harshly.

1. He has a serious girlfriend (the request for a 'Female' is agreeably wrong in the 21st century, but probably based on a sexist image in my mind of a male assistant turning out to be some jealous slob who reads Tucker Max... a chick would be less likely to envy Ned's success.)
2. He uses text messaging in a unique way to keep up with people. If you need a blurb for a book or movie you're involved with, and you text Ned at 3am, he'll text you back thirty seconds later with something brilliant.
3. Fuck it, I'm not going to list any more of these bullet points. If I were trolling for a personal assistant, I would probably prefer a woman also (although I wouldn't state it, or necessarily turn down a guy who really had his shit together). I'd prefer a smiling Anne Hathaway assistant any day of the week over some overly ambitious Aleksey Vayner.

We wrote back, thanking David for his insights, and he responded thusly: "So how would we go about working in a subtle plug for me on Gawker?" Well, David, we imagine it would go a little something like this.

Earlier: Ned Vizzini is The Craigslist Park Slope Novelist

Ned Vizzini Is The Craigslist Park Slope Novelist

Emily Gould — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 09:17:37 EST

Yesterday, we asked you to help us ID the novelist looking for a "female" personal assistant with "experience in being a personal assistant to a writer, filmmaker, artist or similar person in a creative field" on Craigslist. Some of you threw out wildly hopeful suggestions — yes, we wish that Jonathan "Saffy" Foer and Nicole Krauss used Craigslist too, but their assistants have assistants to look for new assistants for them. Fortunately, we live in an era when writer types obsessively document every detail of their lives and transactions online; aging teen phenom Ned Vizzini is no exception.

In fact, with a website, a blog, and a MySpace, he's kind of the rule. So when Ned posted his ad on Craigslist, he actually screencapped the payment screen and then posted it in his Clipmarks folder, ostensibly to make some kind of point about how Craigslist isn't free.

Well, maybe in addition to her duties ordering things on Amazon and handling Ned's MySpace friend requests, his new personal assistant will teach him how to cover his tracks. We think her very first order of business should be updating the Press section of Ned's Official Website. Currently, Ned just has a link to Google News because, he says, "I don't have time to post articles about myself anymore, plus, it's pretty solipsistic, don't you think?"

Earlier: Who's The Park Slope Novelist Hiring On Craigslist?