Nan Talese

Nan Talese
Nan Talese at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival
Born	(1933-12-19) December 19, 1933 (age 83)
Occupation	Editor, publisher
Spouse(s)	Gay Talese (m. 1959)
Children	2

Nan Talese (née Ahearn; born December 19, 1933) is an American editor, and a veteran of the New York publishing industry.

Nan Irene Ahearn Talese was born in 1933 to Mr. and Mrs. Thomas J. Ahearn, Jr of Rye, New York. Her father was a banker. Talese attended the Rye Country Day School and graduated from the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Greenwich, Connecticut. She was a debutante presented at the 1951 Westchester Cotillion. Talese graduated from Manhattanville College in 1955. Talese married Gay Talese in 1959 and at that time was already working for Random House.

Talese is the Senior Vice President of Doubleday. Since 1990, Talese has been the Publisher and Editorial Director of Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, an imprint known for literary excellence. Talese began her editing career at Random House, and later worked at Simon & Schuster and Houghton Mifflin. Talese has edited many notable authors, including Pat Conroy, Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan, Jennifer Egan, Antonia Fraser, Barry Unsworth, Valerie Martin, and Thomas Keneally. Talese's imprint also published James Frey's controversial memoir, A Million Little Pieces.

In 2005, Talese was the recipient of the very first Maxwell Perkins Award, given by the Center for Fiction. The award was established to "honor the work of an editor, publisher, or agent, who over the course of his or her career has discovered, nurtured, and championed writers of fiction in the United States. This award is dedicated to Maxwell Perkins, in celebration of his legacy as one of the country’s most important editors."