Jardin des Tuileries, Paris.
Summer Brennan is an award-winning journalist and author. She is a recipient of the Matthew Power Literary Reporting Award, and was a visiting scholar at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University. Her first book, The Oyster War: The True Story of a Small Farm, Big Politics, and the Future of Wilderness in America, was shortlisted for the Orion Book Award and the Northern California Independent Booksellers Award. Her second book, High Heel, part of the Object Lessons series from Bloomsbury, was named a best book of the month by Refinery29 and Paste Magazine. She has written for The Paris Review, Granta, New York Magazine, Scientific American, Longreads, Pacific Standard, McSweeneys, The Millions, Lit Hub, Buzzfeed, The Rumpus, The San Francisco Chronicle, and others. She studied fine art and creative writing at Bennington College, and received a master’s degree in Journalism and Near Eastern Studies from NYU’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. A longtime communications consultant at the United Nations, she worked on special political issues including decolonization, atomic radiation, outer space technologies, the Middle East, nuclear weapons, disarmament, and international security. Other UN projects have included work on environmental preservation, gender equality, human rights, and the UN Global Ebola Response. Born and raised in Northern California, she lived in New York City before relocating to Paris. Her next book, The Parisian Sphinx, a biography of 19th century French artist and muse Victorine Meurent—best known today as the preferred model of Édouard Manet—will be published by Mariner Books.