Meghan Daum

Meghan Daum's, author and columnist, writings are as minty and refreshing as her favorite ice cream, Mint Chocolate Chip.  While she feels she either has 100 jobs or no job, she has become a sensation among many readers during her writing career. 

Though born in California 1970, Daum was raised on the east side Ridgewood, New Jersey. Daum has a writing style that is comprehendible and relatable. 

As a little girl Daum realized her dream of becoming a New York writer, and that dream was later acquired when she landed an entry level job at a magazine in New York.  

As a Vassar College graduate, she soon quit that job and took out thousands in student loans to attend the MFA writing program at Columbia University's School of Arts. 

After being thousands of dollars in debt and making little compared to the high cost of living in Manhattan, Daum said goodbye to her New Yorker dream and left for the prairies of Lincoln. Nebraska.  Soon following the move in 1999 her first book was published, "My Misspent Youth."  It was an essay collection about her experience with debt.  Daum has said that an essay to her is "an outward inquiry, it's trying to figure out a problem."

In 2003, Daum was ready to move on to bigger things and moved even further across the continent to Los Angeles, California.  She currently still lives there with her husband Alan Zarembo and beloved Sheppard dog Rex.  Daum takes Rex practically everywhere and states "I love him disproportionately to what's probably appropriate,' in "Getting to Know: Meghan Daum" by Teresa Ferrel. 

Since 2005 Daum has been a weekly columnist for the LA Times.  She is typically assigned to write on "fresh" and "timely" topics but writes about things that she is interested in including topics such as social politics, class identity issues, and certain gender issues.  A couple of headlines featured last year are "Doomed by Your Name?" and "Happiness is in Your Mind-and Wallet."

"Writing for a newspaper has been the most satisfying experience," she told Kolhatkar from New York Observer, November 2005. 

Daum's method for writing is to take her life's experiences of American culture and remark on its effects.  In fact she insists to Hillary Frey from Newsday that her second book, and first novel, "The Quality of Life Report" was only "32.9 percent autobiographical," said Daum on her website.  

"I knew nothing about fashion.  I had no interest in it," said Daum.

Ironically during the course of Daum's career she has written for numerous publications, including fashion magazines.   She has written for Allure, The New Yorker, Harper's Bazaar, GQ, Self, Vogue, New York, Travel and Leisure, Blackbook, The Village Voice, and the New York Times Review.  She has also written for the website Beliefnel.

Besides writing Daum has taught at various institutions including the California Institute for the Arts. 

Not only has her work been in college textbooks, Daum has been the subject of columns featured in New York Observer, The New York Times, and Blackbook.  And of course, she has also been on Oprah. 

Daum's latest book was released this year, "Life would be Perfect if I Lived in that House."  It is about her search for the right house for the right price in L.A.  While currently settled in L.A. Daum's ideal situation would be to also have a farm in Nebraska and an apartment in New York. 

All archives from LA Times and more information about Meghan Daum are available on http://meghandaum.com.