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Jan Eliasberg

Goodreads Author

Born

New York City, The United States

Website

https://www.janeliasberg.com/

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janeliasberg

Genre

Fiction, Historical Fiction, Classics

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https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5... ...more

Member Since

June 2009

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Jan Eliasberg is an award-winning writer/director with an MFA in Directing from the Yale School of Drama and an MFA in Fiction from the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson, where she was mentored by Charles Baxter, Joan Silber and Antonya Nelson. HANNAH'S WAR is her debut novel -- HANNAH'S WAR will be published by Little, Brown on March 3, 2020.
Eliasberg has a notable career as a screenwriter, writing films and television series driven by strong female leads. She wrote W.A.S.P. about the Women Air Service Pilots in WWII for Nicole Kidman and Cameron Diaz at FOX. Mi Corazon was written for Universal, with Jennifer Lopez attached to star. She wrote Heart ‘N Soul, a “hip hop Pygmalion” for Warner Brothers, and The Gemcutter, a YA historic Jan Eliasberg is an award-winning writer/director with an MFA in Directing from the Yale School of Drama and an MFA in Fiction from the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson, where she was mentored by Charles Baxter, Joan Silber and Antonya Nelson. HANNAH'S WAR is her debut novel -- HANNAH'S WAR will be published by Little, Brown on March 3, 2020.
Eliasberg has a notable career as a screenwriter, writing films and television series driven by strong female leads. She wrote W.A.S.P. about the Women Air Service Pilots in WWII for Nicole Kidman and Cameron Diaz at FOX. Mi Corazon was written for Universal, with Jennifer Lopez attached to star. She wrote Heart ‘N Soul, a “hip hop Pygmalion” for Warner Brothers, and The Gemcutter, a YA historical fantasy, for Sony. She is attached to direct all of her original screenplays.
Her screenplay, Heart of the Atom, has been honored by the Black List; the BBC Short List; Film Independent’s prestigious Producers Lab, and the Athena Film Festival’s Best Screenplays about female leaders.
She adapted the screenplay of Heart of the Atom into a novel – now known as Hannah’s War – which was pre-emptively bought by Judy Clain at Little Brown as their lead title for Spring 2020.
Heart of the Atom is the story of a female Austrian physicist working on the critical assemblies team of the Manhattan Project in the alien world of Los Alamos, NM in 1945. She has a hidden past in Germany, one that makes her the prime suspect when an army investigator arrives with a chilling mission: to rout out a spy leaking secrets to the Nazis.
For television, Eliasberg was a writer/producer and director for six seasons of NBC’s Sisters. She wrote Spirit of St. Louis, a pilot for CBS and CBS Studios, and two pilots for Fox and Fox Studios, The Blue Line, with Angela Bassett attached, and Fearless.
Eliasberg is currently in development on her original film, Before I Sleep, with Sophia Lillis (IT, IT 2, NANCY DREW) starring. BEFORE I SLEEP traces the complex and unlikely bonds that develop between two women – an architect, already devastated by the sudden death of her fiancée, whose world implodes when his runaway daughter shows up on her doorstep. Their harrowing journey from Los Angeles to Montana, with a life-threatening detour through Reno, NV, leads them to an unexpected catharsis and liberation. BEFORE I SLEEP is an exploration of loss, grief, love and hope, as seen through a uniquely female point of view.
Eliasberg’s prolific directing career includes the feature film, Past Midnight, starring Paul Giamatti, the late Natasha Richardson, and Rutger Hauer. She is known for nurturing performances in film, television and theatre from some of the finest actors of our generation: among them Michael B. Jordan, Michelle Williams, George Clooney, Frances McDormand, Tony Shalhoub, Stanley Tucci, and John Turturro.
Eliasberg was hand picked by Michael Mann to be the first female director of the ground-breaking television series MIAMI VICE, followed by Mann’s critically-acclaimed CRIME STORY. She went on to shatter more glass ceilings as the first female director of the award-winning series WISEGUY, among many others. She has directed dramatic pilots for CBS, NBC, and ABC, as well as countless episodes of television series, including Bull, Nashville, Parenthood, The Magicians, Blue Bloods, NCIS: Los Angeles, Supernatural, and dozens of others. In the course of her career as a director, she has won the EMMY, IMAGEN, and the NAACP IMAGE awards.
Eliasberg received her BA from Wesleyan University, Magna Cum Laude and an MFA in Fiction from the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson. She is a graduate of the prestigious AFI Directing Workshop for Women, where she made her short film, The Doctor, which won the “Best Fiction Short Film Award” at the Los Angeles Film Festival.
She has directed theatre at the Royal Court Theatre in London; South Coast Rep; The Manhattan Theatre Club, and The Public Theatre in New York C ...more

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What books are on your summer reading list this year?

Jan Eliasberg Since it's now September and summer is officially over, I'll share a couple of the books that I read and loved this summer: THE GIFTED SCHOOL by Bruce…moreSince it's now September and summer is officially over, I'll share a couple of the books that I read and loved this summer: THE GIFTED SCHOOL by Bruce Holsinger; Kate Atkinson's BIG SKY (anything by Kate Atkinson always goes straight to the top of my list); Julie Orringer's THE FLIGHT PORTFOLIO; ASK AGAIN, YES by Mary Beth Keane and Susan Choi's spectacular TRUST EXERCISE.(less)

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What’s the best thing about being a writer?

Jan Eliasberg One of the very best things about being a writer is being able to work in my pajamas all day. I have a wardrobe of lounging pajamas, like Nora in THE …moreOne of the very best things about being a writer is being able to work in my pajamas all day. I have a wardrobe of lounging pajamas, like Nora in THE THIN MAN, that look elegant, are incredibly comfortable, and don't make me feel like a slug.
But, on a more serious note, I'm entranced by living in the world of another character, being able to see the world through his or her eyes, describing it in minute detail as she sees it -- the extravagant joy of finding the precise word or the pitch-perfect line of dialogue (which is always about what the character wants and they they would go about getting it, never about what they actually say). Being in this state of "flow" as a writer is perfect happiness.
The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihaly describes flow as "being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost."
I used this idea of flow in HANNAH'S WAR when I described the initial collaboration between Hannah Weiss and Stefan Frei. "She was happy to see him arrive each morning, knowing that the work would ignite an electrical storm in her brain. Once silent, dank, and somber, the room now crackled with ideas, laughter, and moments of genius. They danced in synchrony around the lab with physical ease, almost elation, and a rare collaborative chemistry. But the most intoxicating aspect of Stefan was not the brilliance he brought into the room; it was the brilliance he brought out in her. Hannah had never experienced such exquisite insight. When he spoke of the possibilities of fission, she was aware of every molecule of chalk dust on her fingertips. Since she’d been a child, she’d known there was something inside her—something dormant and unsafe and exhilarating—and now it had a context. When she closed her eyes and listened to the sound of his voice intercut with the frenetic scritch-scratch of chalk on blackboard, she felt herself on the verge of a universe reordered. The theoretical became physical. At last, all the long-imagined possibilities that lay in the harnessing of atomic power, the applications of her wildest dreams, everything her father had groomed her for—it was all within reach. The clarity terrified her so close at hand, but far more powerfully, it thrilled her to the core. "
That captures the ecstatic experience of "flow" for me as a writer.
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Jan Eliasberg’s books

Average rating: 3.77 · 4,545 ratings · 584 reviews · 3 distinct works • Similar authors

	Hannah's War 3.77 avg rating — 4,538 ratings — published 2020 — 15 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Sotto il cielo blu di Berlino 3.71 avg rating — 7 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Before I Sleep 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Jan Eliasberg's Blog

"Triumphant Tale!" -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY REVIEW

Hannah’s War
Jan Eliasberg. Back Bay, $16.99 trade paper (320p) ISBN 978-0-316-53744-5
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Eliasberg’s fast-paced, insightful debut explores one woman’s anxiety about helping to create the world’s first nuclear weapon. Dr. Hannah Weiss, a Jew who escaped Nazi Germany, works with the Americans on the atom bomb in 1945 Los Alamos, N.Mex., where, thanks to her ex Read more of this blog post »

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Published on January 14, 2020 22:17

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Virtue

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The Rage to Live. The International D.P. Children's Center Kloster Indersdorf 1945-46

by Anna Andlauer

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My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel

by Ari Shavit

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Quotes by Jan Eliasberg (?)

“A time of war is a time of amplified connection and disconnection. Our allegiance to everything we love takes on a dangerous primacy, while our fear of everything we hate dons the sheep's clothing of righteousness.”
― Jan Eliasberg, Hannah's War

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“The Torah talks about the Sabbath in different ways. We're told in Exodus to remember, zachor, and keep it holy. In Devarim, it says to observe, shamor, and keep it holy. Zachor speaks to the positive, the bread, wine, prayer, and song, everything we celebrate, eat and drink, and rejoice in. Shamor speaks to the negative - that which is prohibited, the work and play we set aside, the pleasures from which we abstain. This isn't to say these things are good or bad, Hannah. It does not refer to right or wrong. More like inhale and exhale. That which we choose to keep and that which we choose to let go - both are holy.”
― Jan Eliasberg, Hannah's War

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“It wasn't until we were able to sustain a chain reaction that we could be certain Einstein's theories were true." Oppenheimer’s gaze moved past the dancers to the dark mirror windows of the laboratory. "The work she did in Berlin, the work she brought to Chicago, that's the discovery that made the gadget feasible.”
― Jan Eliasberg, Hannah's War

tags: forgotten-women

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