Penelope Rowlands


Penelope Rowlands is an Anglo-American author, editor, and journalist best known for her 2005 biography, A Dash of Daring: Carmel Snow and Her Life in Fashion, Art, and Letters, about the Irish-born editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar.

Biographies

A Dash of Daring

A Dash of Daring -- published by Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster -- was widely reviewed. BBC Radio 4 said Rowlands “revive legacy," which encompassed all of the arts, beyond just fashion. The Irish Times called the book "As vibrant and engaging as a Dorothy Parker piece, and full of Snow's spirit." Fashion editors in particular, weighed in. Suzy Menkes of the International Herald Tribune wrote that "Penelope Rowlands tells a dense, fast-paced story and deftly puts it in the context of magazine history.... Carmel Snow comes vividly to life. Vogue's Anna Wintour called it a "wonderful new biography" in the editor's column of the September, 2005 issue.
The biography was excerpted in U.S.Vogue in September 2005. The British version of Harper's Bazaar also published an excerpt. That text ran in the January 2006 issue -- the first one since the publication was transformed from the former Harpers & Queen.
A Dash of Daring was published in Britain by Simon & Schuster UK in 2006. A U.S. paperback edition came out two years later.
Rowlands is also the author of short biographies of the European industrial designers Jean Prouvé and Eileen Gray, both published in 2002.

Anthologies

Paris Was Ours

Paris Was Ours is a collection of essays by thirty-two international writers on Paris and how it changed their lives. The anthology featured writing by Edmund White, Diane Johnson, the Cuban novelist Zoé Valdés, Judith Thurman, the Iraqi-born Assyrian editor Samuel Shimon and a homeless French blogger, among others. Rowlands edited the collection and wrote its final essay.
Paris Was Ours was chosen as the January 2011, Book of the Month by National Geographic Traveler magazine. Charles Solomon, writing for the Los Angeles Times, warned that some of "the essays tell the reader more about the authors' peccadilloes and prejudices than they do about Paris or Parisians."

The Beatles Are Here!

In 2014 Rowlands edited and contributed to the tribute anthology The Beatles Are Here! 50 Years After the Band Arrived in America, Writers, Musicians, and Other Fans Remember, was published to coincide with the anniversary of the group's arrival in the US. James Wolcott described it in Vanity Fair magazine as "A goody bag of tributes and recollections," while the music critic of The Boston Globe, James Reed, called it "One of the more fascinating new books on the Fab Four’s impact." Publishers Weekly called it, "compulsively readable." Kirkus Reviews referred to it as "A bonbon for fans."

Journalism

Rowlands has written articles on cultural subjects for publications such as Vogue, The New York Times, WSJ. magazine, The Daily Beast, the Columbia Journalism Review, and ElleDecor. She has contributed historical essays and reporting to The American Scholar. In addition, Rowlands has been a contributing writer to Architectural Digest and a contributing editor to ARTnews and Metropolis magazines. She has written book reviews for the Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle, and other publications.

Fellowships and Awards

Leon Levy Fellowship, Summer / Fall 2019. The Center for the History of Collecting, Frick Art Reference Library, The Frick Collection, New York City.

Background

Born in London to an American mother and a British father, Rowlands migrated to the United States with her family at the age of five and was raised in her mother's native New York City. She is a citizen of both the U.S. and Great Britain. She received a B.A. from Bard College and an M.A. from Stanford University. She has lived in California and Paris but now resides in Princeton, New Jersey.

Published Works