Adrian Grenier turns 33 today. Jessica Simpson is turning 29. City comptroller (and mayoral wannabe) William Thompson is turning 56. Former mayor David Dinkins is turning 82. Times film critic A.O. Scott is 43. Showtime chief Matt Blank is turning 59. Author and marketing guru Seth Godin is 49. Writer Alice Munro is 78. Actress Sofia Vergara is 37. Eunice Kennedy Shriver is turning 88. The Office's Phyllis Smith is 58. Socialite Lisa Anastos is 41. Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan is turning 52. And Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys is 55. Weekend birthdays below!

The angelic, all-natural rapper Lil' Kim turns 33 today. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri is 41. Gossip Girl's Connor Paolo, aka Eric van der Woodsen, is 18. Reviled union chief Roger Toussaint is 52. Literary critic Harold Bloom is 78. Interior designer John Barman is 59. And former deputy mayor—and now Bloomberg LP president—Dan Doctoroff will be 50 today.

Writing is hard, lonely work. At least that's what all the great writers say, so that's the line to stick to at dinner parties. But when your Great American Novel is complete, there's loads of self-congratulations. And after that, praise from friends and family. But then strangers who went to better colleges than you, the critics, come in to eviscerate you in 600 words. How is a writer to a respond? Violence? Sex? Passive-aggressive letters?

Lahiri is a Bengali-American author whose debut short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, garnered the 2000 Pulitzer Prize. Her first novel, The Namesake, was adapted into a 2007 movie.