Lisa Taddeo is an American author and journalist known for her book Three Women. Taddeo's work has appeared in The Best American Political Writing and The Best American Sports Writing anthologies.
Early life Taddeo was raised in the Short Hills section of Millburn, New Jersey, where she attended Millburn High School, graduating in 1998."Academic honors going to 131 seniors", The Item of Millburn and Short Hills, May 4, 1998. Accessed December 27, 2025, via Newspapers.com. Her parents are Peter Taddeo, an Italian American doctor, and Pia, a fruit stand cashier from Italy.
Education She first attended New York University but transferred to Rutgers University. Taddeo completed her Master of Fine Arts in fiction at Boston University.
Writing
Early career Taddeo was an associate editor at Golf Magazine when David Granger assigned her first piece for Esquire, titled "The Last Days of Heath Ledger", after reading her unpublished manuscript. She later appeared in Esquire Network's 80th Anniversary special in 2013.
The Washington Post recognized her New York piece, "Rachel Uchitel is Not a Madam", as one of their top five long reads that stand the test of time.
Taddeo has since received the William Holodnok Fiction Prize and the Florence Engel Randall Award in fiction.
She is a two-time recipient of the Pushcart Prize, recognized for her short stories "42 (2017)", published in the New England Review, and "Suburban Weekend (2019)", published in Granta.
Later work Her book Three Women was released in July 2019 by Simon and Schuster. In June 2020, it won the Narrative Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the British Book Awards.
Taddeo's debut novel, Animal, was published by Avid Reader Press in the summer of 2021 and explores themes of "both sisterhood and female rage..."
Her third book, Ghost Lover, is a collection of nine short stories published in 2022 by Avid Reader Press. Adaptions In July 2019, Showtime announced a series commitment adaptation of Three Women. Taddeo will write and be executive producer of the series. It premiered on Starz in 2024.https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10732048/
Awards Year Book Award Category Result Ref 2019 Three Women Foyles Books of the Year Non-Fiction 2020 Australian Book Industry Awards International Book BookTube Prize Nonfiction British Book Awards Non-fiction: Narrative Gordon Burn Prize — 2021 Animal Center for Fiction First Novel Prize — 2022 McKitterick Prize — Bibliography Nonfiction
Three Women (2019)
Novel Animal (2021)
Short story collection
Ghost Lover (2022)
References