[6] Brenner worked as a contributing editor for New York magazine from 1980 to 1984, and covered the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.

[2] Her 1996 article for Vanity Fair on Jeffrey Wigand and the tobacco wars, titled "The Man Who Knew Too Much",[8] was made into the 1999 feature film The Insider, starring Russell Crowe and Al Pacino, and directed by Michael Mann.

This article was later adapted into the film A Private War, directed by first time director, Matthew Heineman, and starring Academy Award nominated actress, Rosamund Pike.

In 1997, she wrote an article for Vanity Fair on Richard Jewell, the security guard hailed as a hero, then incorrectly suspected, of the Olympic Park bombing in 1996.

[13] In 2009, the Manhattan Theater Club announced that it had commissioned Alfred Uhry to adapt Brenner's memoir Apples and Oranges: My Brother and Me, Lost and Found for the stage.

[16] During a black-tie gala at Tavern on the Green in 1991, Donald Trump poured a glass of wine down Brenner's suit because she had written an unflattering piece about him earlier that year.