Who

The former assistant to Anna Wintour, Weisberger is the author of the blockbuster bitch-fest/tell-all novel The Devil Wears Prada.

Backstory

The daughter of a teacher and a mortgage broker, Weisberger has come a long way since her days as a middle-class sorority girl from Scranton. Following graduation from Cornell in 1999, she landed a job as an assistant to Anna Wintour at Vogue, where she had the privilege of fetching Anna's lattes, booking her town cars, and weathering her constant abuse. A little under a year later Weisberger left to work at high-end travel title Departures—she followed former Vogue features editor Richard David Story there—and began submitting chapters of The Devil Wears Prada to a writing workshop. She was quickly offered a $250,000 advance from Doubleday for the novel (Gelfman Schneider agent Deborah Schneider arranged the deal), and $600,000 from Fox for the film rights.

Of note

The Devil Wears Prada—a thinly-veiled account of her Vogue baptism-by-fire—made Weisberger the talk of the media and publishing industries. The book spent over six months on the New York Times bestseller list, the movie starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway was a box office hit in 2006, and a TV version is said to be in development at Fox. Alas, Weisberger's follow-up novel, Everyone Worth Knowing, didn't do so hot—the Times called it "fatuous, clunky" and it spent a paltry three weeks on the Times' bestseller list—despite high hopes and an advance of $1 million from Simon & Schuster. A third novel (also bought by S&S for a $1 million-plus advance), Chasing Harry Winston, came out in May '08.

On screen

If you blink you might miss it, but Weisberger had a brief, silent appearance in the DWP movie as Miranda Priestly's nanny.

Personal

Weisberger and her husband, Mike Cohen, whom she married in Anguilla in April 2008, live in downtown with her Maltese, Mitzy. She also has an apartment in Santa Monica.