Jane Isay

Jane Isay "grew up in New York City, the daughter of a columnist for the New York Post and a psychiatrist. After graduating from Bryn Mawr College, she married and moved to New Haven, where she worked at the Yale University Press, creating their lists in psychiatry, psychology, and child development. In 1979 she moved to Basic Books, and for the next 25 years she was an executive at a number of publishing houses. She worked with many experts, especially in the human sciences, helping them write for the general audience. She published Alice Miller (The Drama of the Gifted Child), Mary Pipher (Reviving Ophelia) Antonio Damasio (Descartes’ Error), and Rachel Simmons (Odd Girl Out), and also some outstanding nonfiction including Praying for Sheetrock, by Melissa Fay Greene, Friday Night Lights, by H.G. Bissinger, and Woe is I, by Patricia O’Conner.

"Jane Isay has been a board member on numerous university presses, including Rutgers, John’s Hopkins, and Wesleyan; she chairs the board of The New Press.

In 2004 she left her job as Editor-in-Chief at Harcourt Trade Books to embark on a new career as a writer. Walking on Eggshells is the result."

Her son is David Isay.