Dani Shapiro

Dani Shapiro is an American writer and the author of six novels, including Family History, Black & White, and most recently, Signal Fires, and the best-selling memoirs Slow Motion, Devotion, Hourglass, and Inheritance. She has also written for magazines such as The New Yorker, The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, and Elle. In February 2019, she created an original podcast on iHeart Radio called Family Secrets.

Shapiro's novels include Playing with Fire, Fugitive Blue, Picturing the Wreck, Family History, Black & White, and Signal Fires. Her best-selling memoirs have Slow Motion, Devotion, Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life, Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage, and most recently, Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love. Signal Fires was named the best book of 2022 by Time Magazine, Washington Post, and others, and it is a national bestseller.

Angela Haupt writes: "Shapiro'sOn a cold night in 2010, a retired doctor sits underneath an ancient oak tree with the unusual little boy who lives across the street. The boy points out the constellations and what they represent. The man—unlike anyone else in the boy's life—listens. Though the boy doesn't know it, this isn't the first time their lives have intersected, and they'll soon become linked again in a way that will endure time and distance. Signal Fires, Dani Shapiro's first novel in 15 years, follows the man and his family, and the boy and his parents, across decades, lyrically examining the ways a single event can alter many lives forever."

In Inheritance, Shapiro writes about her experience of learning through a recreational DNA test that her biological father was not Paul Shapiro; instead, she had been conceived by the primitive practice of mixing Paul's sperm with an anonymous donor, whom she later was able to identify. Inheritance debuted at #11 on the New York Times Best Seller list, and Ruth Franklin called it "beautifully written and deeply moving."

The San Francisco Chronicle described Inheritance as "as compulsively readable as a mystery novel while exploring the deeper mysteries of identity and family and truth itself… a story told with great insight and honesty and heart." And Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jennifer Egan wrote, "Inheritance is Dani Shapiro at her best: a gripping genetic detective story, and a meditation on the meaning of parenthood and family." The memoir was included on several best-of-the-year lists, including Vanity Fair, Oprah Magazine, Lit Hub, and Wired. 

Inheritance is being adapted for film by Shapiro's husband, journalist and screenwriter Michael Maren, in development with Killer Films. In addition to The New Yorker, The Oprah Magazine, Vogue, and Elle, Shapiro's writing has also appeared in Salon, among others.