She has been film critic at The Washington Post since 2002 and is the author of Talking Pictures: How to Watch Movies (2017).
[2] After graduating from college, Hornaday moved to New York to become a freelance writer, contributing to Premiere, Us and Ms. magazines;[1] at the latter, she also worked as a researcher and assistant to Gloria Steinem,[3] a role she held from 1983 to 1985.
[4] Hornaday began contributing to the "Arts & Leisure" section of The New York Times, eventually going on to become film critic at the Austin American-Statesman in 1995.
[9][10][11][12] The book, a 304-page text published with Basic Books,[13] draws on a series Hornaday began writing in 2009 for the Post, aimed at explaining the various specialized crafts in filmmaking – like sound, editing, cinematography – to a general audience.
[3] In a review for The New York Times, Lisa Schwarzbaum described the book as "a pleasantly calm, eminently sensible, down-the-middle primer for the movie lover — amateur, professional or Twitter-centric orator — who would like to acquire and sharpen basic viewing skills.