Tama Janowitz is an American novelist and a short story writer. She is often referenced as one of the main "brat pack" authors, along with Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney. Her novel-in-stories Slaves of New York (1986) was adapted into the movie of the same name in 1989.

Born in San Francisco, California to a psychiatrist father and literature professor mother, who divorced when she was ten, Janowitz moved to the East Coast of the United States to attend Barnard College and the Columbia University School of the Arts. She started writing about life in New York City, where she had settled down. She socialized with Andy Warhol and became well-known in New York's literary and social circles. Her 1986 collection of short stories, Slaves of New York, brought her wider fame.