Katherine "Katy" Lederer (born ) is an American poet and author of the memoir ''Poker Face: A Girlhood Among Gamblers''.

Early life and education

Lederer is the daughter of bestselling non-fiction author

Richard Lederer Richard Lederer (born 1938) is an American linguist, author, speaker, and teacher. He is best known for his books on the English language and on wordplay such as puns, oxymorons, and anagrams. He has been dubbed "the Wizard of Idiom," "Attila ...

and Rhoda (née Spangenberg) Lederer. The child of a

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

fatherSan Diego Jewish Journal: "Hungry for Words" by Karen Pearlman
June 2010 , ''"His children were not raised Jewish, as Lederer’s first wife was not Jewish, nor is van Egeren"'' and a non-Jewish mother, she was not raised as Jewish. Her siblings are world-class poker players Howard Lederer and Annie Duke. She graduated from St. Paul's School in Concord,

New Hampshire New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

, where her father was on the English faculty. Lederer later attended the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

, from which she received her BA in English and anthropology. After graduating in 1995, Lederer moved to

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

to study poker with her siblings, and was subsequently accepted to the

Iowa Writers' Workshop The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a graduate-level creative writing program. At 89 years, it is the oldest writing program offering a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in the United States. Its acceptance rate is between 2 ...

on an Iowa Arts Fellowship. While at Iowa, Lederer founded the

zine A zine ( ; short for ''magazine'' or ''fanzine'') is, as noted on Merriam-Webster’s official website, a magazine that is a “noncommercial often homemade or online publication usually devoted to specialized and often unconventional subject ...

''Explosive'', which was published in a limited edition of 300 with hand-printed covers by the artist and writer David Larsen. The tenth and final issue of ''Explosive'' was published in 2006.

Career

After completing her studies at Iowa in 1998, Lederer moved to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, where she worked for psychoanalyst Arnold Cooper. After this, she worked as a coordinator of the Barnard New Women Poets program. From 1998-1999, she was the editor of the Poetry Project Newsletter out of the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church in the

Bowery The Bowery () is a street and neighbourhood, neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City, New York. The street runs from Chatham Square at Park Row (Manhattan), Park Row, Worth Street, and Mott Street in the south to Cooper Square at 4th ...

. Lederer continues to publish limited-edition books and chapbooks under the Spectacular Books imprint, and also serves as a Poetry Editor of ''Fence'' magazine. In 1999, she signed a contract with Crown Books to write a memoir about her family’s life in gambling, Poker Face: A Girlhood Among Gamblers. Lederer made her poetry debut in 2002 with the collection ''Winter Sex''. Poet D. A. Powell described the poems in the collection “as leaps of faith, fibrillating in the dark world with a kinetic energy that rises out of erotic desire.” Her memoir, ''Poker Face: A Girlhood Among Gamblers'' was published in 2003. It was chosen as a

Barnes & Noble Barnes & Noble Booksellers is an American bookseller with the largest number of retail outlets in the United States. The company operates approximately 600 retail stores across the United States. Barnes & Noble operates mainly through its B ...

Discover Great New Writers selection, and was named a Best Nonfiction Book of the Year by ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...

'' and one of eight Best Books of the Year by ''

Esquire Magazine ''Esquire'' is an American men's magazine. Currently published in the United States by Hearst, it also has more than 20 international editions. Founded in 1933, it flourished during the Great Depression and World War II under the guidance of ...

''. From 2002 to 2008, Lederer worked as a recruiter at D.E. Shaw & Co., a quantitative hedge fund in midtown Manhattan, which provided much of the inspiration for the pieces in her most recent poetry collection, ''The Heaven-Sent Leaf''. The title of both the book and the opening poem is taken from the second half of Goethe’s

Faust Faust ( , ) is the protagonist of a classic German folklore, German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust (). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a deal with the Devil at a ...

and describes paper money. Other poems in the collection reference the works of

John Kenneth Galbraith John Kenneth Galbraith (October 15, 1908 – April 29, 2006), also known as Ken Galbraith, was a Canadian-American economist, diplomat, public official, and intellectual. His books on economic topics were bestsellers from the 1950s through the ...

Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche became the youngest pro ...

, and

Edith Wharton Edith Newbold Wharton (; ; January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937) was an American writer and designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper-class New York "aristocracy" to portray, realistically, the lives and morals of the Gil ...

. She married Ben Statz, after being introduced to him by her sister Annie Duke. They have two children. https://s3.amazonaws.com/k12-prod-us-east-1-media-pub/36/misc/misc_118096.pdf

Bibliography

* ''Winter Sex'' (2002). * ''Poker Face: A Girlhood Among Gamblers'' (2003). * ''The Heaven-Sent Leaf'' (2008). * ''The Engineers'' (2023).

References

External links

Official websiteProfile in The New Yorker's Talk of the TownInterview with Matt Borondy in "Identity Theory"Interview with Kurt Andersen on NPR's "Studio 360"Interview with Anne Strainchamps on NPR's "To the Best of Our Knowledge"Interview with Tess Vigeland on NPR's "Marketplace"Interview with Canadian Public Broadcasting's "As It Happens"Katy Lederer's Author Page at Wave Books
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lederer, Katy Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 1970s births American people of German-Jewish descent American memoirists University of California, Berkeley alumni Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni Place of birth missing (living people) American women poets American people of Polish-Jewish descent Writers from New Hampshire People from Concord, New Hampshire American women memoirists 21st-century American women Memoirists from New Hampshire D. E. Shaw & Co. people