Emma Straub

Emma Straub is the New York Times-bestselling author of six books for adults, including the novels This Time Tomorrow, All Adults Here, The Vacationers, Modern Lovers, and Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures, as well as the story collection Other People We Married. Her novel This Time Tomorrow debuted at #3 on the New York Times bestseller list and was the #1 Indie Next Pick, spending multiple weeks at the top of the independent bestseller list. A Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, Straub’s work has been published in more than twenty languages worldwide.

As a speaker, Straub is as delightful and engaging as her fiction. She is a writer who transforms personal history into universally resonant storytelling and speaks candidly about creativity, reinvention, growing up and growing older, and the cultural forces that shape us. With humor and honesty, Straub connects deeply with audiences across generations, leaving them entertained, energized, and ready to embrace the magic of what comes next.

Straub’s newest novel, American Fantasy, is an irresistible and sharply funny story about what happens when your teenage dreams resurface in midlife. Set aboard a four-day themed cruise featuring all five members of a famous 1990s boyband, the novel follows newly divorced Annie, who boards the ship reluctantly—only to find herself unexpectedly moved by the music and memories of her youth. Amid thousands of devoted fans, slushy cocktails, and a surprising new friendship with one of the band members, Annie reconnects with a long-buried part of herself. Packed with laugh-out-loud observations and poignant reflections on fame, nostalgia, marriage, and middle age, American Fantasy is both pure escapism and a wise, uplifting story about second chances.

Straub and her husband are the owners of Books Are Magic, the beloved independent bookstore in Brooklyn, New York.