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Judith Viorst
Judith Viorst (/viˈɔːrst/ vee-ORST; née Stahl; born February 2, 1931) is an American writer, newspaper journalist, and psychoanalysis researcher. She is known for her humorous observational poetry and for her children's literature. This includes The Tenth Good Thing About Barney (about the death of a pet) and the Alexander series of short picture books, which includes Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (1972), which has sold over two million copies.
Viorst is a 1952 graduate of the Newark College of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. In 1968, she signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. In the latter part of the 1970s, after two decades of writing for children and adults, Viorst turned to the study of Freudian psychology. In 1981, she became a research graduate at Washington Psychoanalytic Institute after six years of study.
A native of Newark, New Jersey, Viorst was raised in a Jewish family in Maplewood, New Jersey, and attended Columbia High School. A graduate of the class of 1948, she was inducted into the school's hall of fame in 1990.
Among Viorst's books for children is the "Alexander" series (including Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day), whose narrator is a young boy who lives with his parents and two brothers, Anthony and Nick, who are named after Viorst's own three sons.
Viorst's book Sad Underwear (published in 1995) is a collection of poems that examines a wide variety of feelings and experiences from a child's point of view. Her verses are accompanied by black and white illustrations by Richard Hull.
Viorst's books for adults include nonfiction psychology books such as Grown-up Marriage, Imperfect Control, and Necessary Losses. She has written nine books of poetry including Unexpectedly Eighty and Other Adaptations, When Did I Stop Being Twenty and Other Injustices: Selected Poems from Single to Mid-Life, and People and other Aggravations. Viorst is also a newspaper columnist and has written frequently for The New York Times and The Washington Post, and has been a contributing editor to Redbook magazine.
Viorst also penned the musical Love & Shrimp with Shelly Markam. The Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati hosted a performance of Love & Shrimp, starring Deb Girdler, Pamela Myers and Shelley Bamberger, in the spring of 1999.
Viorst lives in Washington, D.C. Her late husband, political writer Milton Viorst, died of COVID-19 in 2022. They have three grown sons: Anthony, Nicholas, and Alexander; and seven grandchildren. Viorst received the 2011 Foremother Award for Lifetime Achievement from the National Research Center for Women & Families.
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Judith Viorst
Judith Viorst (/viˈɔːrst/ vee-ORST; née Stahl; born February 2, 1931) is an American writer, newspaper journalist, and psychoanalysis researcher. She is known for her humorous observational poetry and for her children's literature. This includes The Tenth Good Thing About Barney (about the death of a pet) and the Alexander series of short picture books, which includes Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (1972), which has sold over two million copies.
Viorst is a 1952 graduate of the Newark College of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. In 1968, she signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. In the latter part of the 1970s, after two decades of writing for children and adults, Viorst turned to the study of Freudian psychology. In 1981, she became a research graduate at Washington Psychoanalytic Institute after six years of study.
A native of Newark, New Jersey, Viorst was raised in a Jewish family in Maplewood, New Jersey, and attended Columbia High School. A graduate of the class of 1948, she was inducted into the school's hall of fame in 1990.
Among Viorst's books for children is the "Alexander" series (including Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day), whose narrator is a young boy who lives with his parents and two brothers, Anthony and Nick, who are named after Viorst's own three sons.
Viorst's book Sad Underwear (published in 1995) is a collection of poems that examines a wide variety of feelings and experiences from a child's point of view. Her verses are accompanied by black and white illustrations by Richard Hull.
Viorst's books for adults include nonfiction psychology books such as Grown-up Marriage, Imperfect Control, and Necessary Losses. She has written nine books of poetry including Unexpectedly Eighty and Other Adaptations, When Did I Stop Being Twenty and Other Injustices: Selected Poems from Single to Mid-Life, and People and other Aggravations. Viorst is also a newspaper columnist and has written frequently for The New York Times and The Washington Post, and has been a contributing editor to Redbook magazine.
Viorst also penned the musical Love & Shrimp with Shelly Markam. The Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati hosted a performance of Love & Shrimp, starring Deb Girdler, Pamela Myers and Shelley Bamberger, in the spring of 1999.
Viorst lives in Washington, D.C. Her late husband, political writer Milton Viorst, died of COVID-19 in 2022. They have three grown sons: Anthony, Nicholas, and Alexander; and seven grandchildren. Viorst received the 2011 Foremother Award for Lifetime Achievement from the National Research Center for Women & Families.