The Penguin Speakers Bureau

Jane Ganahl has been a journalist, humorist, author, consultant, editor, and community organizer in San Francisco for twenty-five years. She is the author of the novelized memoir, Naked on the Page: The Misadventures of My Unmarried Midlife, which is in development for a TV series. Of her book, Elle magazine wrote: “[Ganahl’s] dating escapades are daring and delicious, but also emotionally profound.”

She is also the editor of the acclaimed 2005 anthology, Single Woman of a Certain Age: 28 Women Writers on the Unmarried Midlife. Of the collection, The Hartford Courant wrote: “This collection of essays show the writers know plenty about love—how it works, when it works, when it doesn’t, and why it’s not always the be-all and end-all of a woman’s emotional life. Growing older solo is fraught with challenges—but also with opportunities.”

Ganahl has been a journalist for almost three decades, most of that time with San Francisco newspapers, covering everything from City Hall to pop culture. During her final five years at The San Francisco Chronicle she penned the “Single Minded” Sunday column about the unmarried life; it served as the backdrop for her memoir. For her outspokenness, MSN.com named her to its “Singles Hall of Fame,” noting: “Jane Ganahl is not only a keen observer of single life—she’s also a champion of it.”

As an expert in the field of single life, Ganahl has chaired panels at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club, at writers’ conferences, and at marketing seminars. She has also appeared on numerous TV programs, including The Today Show, and innumerable radio shows, from the Sirius network to NPR. There is currently a proposal in the works for Ganahl to have her own radio show about single life.

Her work can now be found regularly on the Huffington Post and Match.com; she has also contributed to Harper’s Bazaar, Harp, Parenting, Book, Salon.com and Rolling Stone.com. She has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for her work.

In addition to editing Single Woman of a Certain Age, Ganahl has contributed essays to four other anthologies: The Single State of the Union, The Secret Lives of Lawfully Wedded Wives, Roar Softly and Carry a Great Lipstick, and the upcoming The Face in the Mirror: Writers Reflect on Their Dreams of Youth—and the Reality of Age (Prometheus, Sept. 2009).

In what little spare time she has, Ganahl co-directs Litquake, a ten-year-old festival of Bay Area literature that annually draws close to 500 writers and thousands of book fans; organizes The Last Supper, a nine-year-old monthly dinner salon for creative San Franciscans; dotes on her grown daughter; owns cats because it’s part of the uniform; and dates occasionally, but not desperately.

Check out Jane Ganahl’s website here.