Janet Flanner with Ernest Hemingway

Janet Flanner was born on March 13, 1892 in Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1914, she graduated from the University of Chicago. After graduation, she worked a a cinema critic for the Indianapolis Star. In 1918, she married William Rehm; they were divorced in 1926. Janet Flanner was bisexual and had a long-time relationship with Solita Solano. The pair were satirized in Djuna Barnes ‘ Ladies Almanack.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Janet Flanner was a correspondant for the New Yorker Magazine in Paris. She wrote a series of columns under the pseudonym of Genet called Letter from Paris.  She became friendly with many of the Lost Generation authors including Ernest Hemingway; she was also a friend of Gertrude Stein. Janet Flanner wrote one novel called Cubical City in 1926; most of her other writing was journalistic. In 1972, she published the book Paris was Yesterday which collected many of her Letter from Paris columns from 1925-1939.

Janet Flanner died in New York City on November 7, 1978.