In the fourth grade, Wendy Paris relocated from Columbus, OH, to the suburbs of Detroit, where she spent the rest of her childhood dreaming of living in a different town, ideally one much warmer. She attended the Honors College at the University of Houston, receiving a BA Cum Laude in English Literature with concentrations in philosophy and creative writing. She also studied French in a summer program at the Sorbonne, Spanish in Guanajato, Mexico, Italian (briefly) at Berlitz, Hebrew (briefly) at several New York City synagogues, bread baking (really briefly) at the New England Culinary Institute, and ballroom dancing at sundry studios in various cities. Recently, she went back to school, and received an MFA in Creative Writing, Nonfiction, from Columbia University.
After completing her undergraduate degree, she worked as an art reporter for KUHF-FM, the NPR affiliate in Houston, and as a production assistant/segment producer for KUHT-TV, Houston's PBS affiliate. She did a brief stint as a news reporter for KBMT-TV, the ABC affiliate in Beaumont, TX, and served as a special sections editor for the Houston
Chronicle. She also lived in Paris, where she freelanced for French and U.S. publications, shopped, and ate many, many pastries.
In the mid-1990s, she moved to New York City, drawn by the career possibilities, though not the weather. After working at WNBC-TV, she went freelance full-time. As a freelancer, she has written and reported about art, travel,
relationships, food, work, health and mental health, as well as done personal essays for various publications, radio shows
and websites including ARTnews, Marketplace radio, The New York Times, Travel & Leisure, and Salon.com. She has published a book of relationship and general life advice based on the noble-though-often-maligned heroines of ten classic fairy tales, Happily Ever After: The Fairy Tale Formula
for Lasting Love, published by HarperCollins. She also co-authored a book of quotes on love and marriage, Words for the Wedding.
Highlights of her academic and work career include
studying creative writing with Donald Barthelme, Tom Cobb and Edward Albee in
Houston, producing radio and TV pieces on the Kronos Quartet, winning a CINDY
award from the Association of Visual Communicators, hosting and co-producing a 30-minute TV pilot on
20-something life in Houston, taking a six-week cross-country road trip to
America’s tackiest places and reporting on them for several radio shows and AOL, publishing and promoting Happily Ever
After, studying the personal essay with Lis Harris, Philip Lopate, David Rakoff
and others at Columbia, and contributing two personal essays to the Modern Love
column of The New York Times.
Personal highlights include seeing
Jean-Michel Jarre’s sound and light show on Houston’s glass skyline, traveling
to Thailand for work and pleasure, entering and completing the Body-for-Life
body building contest, rock climbing in the Shawangunk Mountains, hiking in
Topanga Canyon, traveling extensively throughout Mexico, staying at many five-star tropical resorts for work, getting married, getting a puppy and having and
raising a baby.
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