Jessica

Grose

New York Times Opinion Writer

Fiction & Nonfiction Author

Travels from: New York, NY

“Funny, compelling, delicious and satisfying.” — Lena Dunham

Jessica Grose is an opinion writer at The New York Times, where she writes a newsletter on parenting.

Jess was the founding editor of Lenny, the email newsletter and website. She also writes about women’s health, culture, and grizzly bears. She was named one of LinkedIn’s Next Wave top professionals 35 and under in 2016 and a Glamour “Game Changer” in 2020 for her coverage of the pandemic.

Her second novel, Soulmates, was published in 2016. It’s about a broken marriage, a spiritual awakening, and a murder at a yoga retreat. Soulmates is “delightfully sly” according to Elle, “a killer read” per Cosmopolitan, and “compelling, funny, painful and wry,” says the Globe and Mail.

Her debut novel, Sad Desk Salad, came out in 2012. It takes place at a women’s website and Jess refers to it as “the devil wears sweatpants.” Glamour called it “Dishy, zingy, hilarious.”

She was formerly a senior editor at Slate, and an editor at Jezebel. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, New York, the Washington Post, Businessweek, Elle, Cosmopolitan, and many other publications. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughters.

In her newest book, Screaming on the Inside, Grose explains in thoughtful and revelatory chapters about pregnancy, identity, work, social media, and the crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic; untangling how we got to this moment, why the current state of expectations on mothers is wholly unsustainable, and how we can move towards something better. Kirkus gave Screaming on the Inside a starred review, noting, “Grose’s fiery compassion is matched by her profoundly complex understanding of the material and her trenchant, witty prose.” Publisher’s Weekly called it a “stirring account” and added: “Mothers struggling to keep their heads above water will find camaraderie in this empathetic outing.”

Jessica's Featured Titles

Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustainability of American Motherhood

Mariner Books |

December 6, 2022

Nonfiction

In this timely and necessary book, New York Times opinion writer Jessica Grose dismantles two hundred years of unrealistic parenting expectations and empowers today’s mothers to make choices that actually serve themselves, their children, and their communities

Close your eyes and picture the perfect mother. She is usually blonde and thin. Her roots are never showing and she installed that gleaming kitchen backsplash herself (watch her TikTok for DIY tips). She seamlessly melds work, wellness and home; and during the depths of the pandemic, she also ran remote school and woke up at 5 a.m. to meditate.

You may read this and think it’s bananas; you have probably internalized much of it.

Journalist Jessica Grose sure had. After she failed to meet every one of her own expectations for her first pregnancy, she devoted her career to revealing how morally bankrupt so many of these ideas and pressures are. Now, in Screaming on the Inside, Grose weaves together her personal journey with scientific, historical, and contemporary reporting to be the voice for American parents she wishes she’d had a decade ago.

The truth is that parenting cannot follow a recipe; there’s no foolproof set of rules that will result in a perfectly adjusted child. Every parent has different values, and we will have different ideas about how to pass those values along to our children. What successful parenting has in common, regardless of culture or community, is close observation of the kind of unique humans our children are. In thoughtful and revelatory chapters about pregnancy, identity, work, social media, and the crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic, Grose explains how we got to this moment, why the current state of expectations on mothers is wholly unsustainable, and how we can move towards something better.

Friendship & Community, Health & Wellness, Memoir & Personal Journeys, Nonfiction

Soulmates: A Novel

William Morrow |

September 27, 2016

Fiction

“For anyone who has ever suspected something sinister lurking behind the craze of new-age spirituality, Jessica Grose has crafted just the tale for you. With the delicious bite of satire and the page-turning satisfaction of a thriller, Soulmates is a deeply compelling, funny and sharply observed look at just how far we will go to achieve inner peace.”—Lena Dunham

A clever, timely novel about a marriage, and infidelity, the meaning of true spirituality, perception and reality from the author of Sad Desk Salad, in which a scorned ex-wife tries to puzzle out the pieces of her husband’s mysterious death at a yoga retreat and their life together.

It’s been two years since the divorce, and Dana has moved on. She’s killing it at her law firm, she’s never looked better, thanks to all those healthy meals she cooks, and she’s thrown away Ethan’s ratty old plaid recliner. She hardly thinks about her husband—ex-husband—anymore, or about how the man she’d known since college ran away to the Southwest with a yoga instructor, spouting spiritual claptrap that Dana still can’t comprehend.

But when she sees Ethan’s picture splashed across the front page of the New York Post—”Nama-Slay: Yoga Couple Found Dead in New Mexico Cave”—Dana discovers she hasn’t fully let go of Ethan or the past. The article implies that it was a murder-suicide, and Ethan’s to blame. How could the man she once loved so deeply be a killer? Restless to find answers that might help her finally to let go, Dana begins to dig into the mystery surrounding Ethan’s death. Sifting through the clues of his life, Dana finds herself back in the last years of their marriage . . . and discovers that their relationship—like Ethan’s death—wasn’t what it appeared to be.

A novel of marriage, meditation, and all the spaces in between, Soulmates is a page-turning mystery, a delicious satire of our feel-good spiritual culture, and a nuanced look at contemporary relationships by one of the sharpest writers working today.

Fiction, Mystery & Thriller

Sad Desk Salad: A Novel

William Morrow Paperbacks |

October 2, 2012

Fiction

As a former editor for popular websites, including Slate and Jezebel, Jessica Grose intimately understands the realities of life in the blogosphere–and she employs this knowledge to hilarious effect in her edgy and timely debut novel, Sad Desk Salad. Grose’s story of a savvy blogger who stumbles upon an irresistible scoop–one that could cause irreparable damage to a young woman’s life and reputation–and must reconcile her true values with the ruthless demands of a gossip- and reality-obsessed culture is a stinging and wildly funny indictment of America’s obsession with celebrity dirt. This fictional behind-the-scenes look at a booming online industry is smart and sharp contemporary women’s fiction, a The Devil Wears Prada for the twenty-teens.

Comedy & Humor, Fiction

Why America Makes it so Hard to Be a Mother // Why America's Moms Are Screaming on the Inside

Why is it more difficult to be a parent in the United States than it is in our other peer nations? This talk goes into some of the history behind why things are the way they are in America today, and what we can do to fix what’s broken.

How to Fix Working Motherhood

What moms say they want, what the United States makes so difficult about maintaining a career, and what experts say can help retain the female workforce.

How to Let Go of Mom Guilt And Find Your Own Values

When I was reporting Screaming on the Inside, the most common emotion that mothers expressed to me was guilt. No matter their background, they felt bad about some part of their parenting, and they also felt bad about feeling bad. This talk explores the contradictory ideals pressed on American moms, how to identify them, and how to find what really matters to you.

What Just Happened?

A review of pandemic parenting, how it made clear many problems with American motherhood, and how we can fix those cracks in our systems.

It's Not All On Us: Parenting in a Connected World

Every week there’s a new headline about some horrible social media transgression. It shouldn’t be all on parents to fix this, and the good news is — it’s not. There are things schools, communities and our government can do to help kids with the tools we already have.

Bad Faith: Why Americans Are Moving Away from Organized Religion

Americans have been moving away from organized religion at a rate never seen before. Younger Americans especially are disenchanted with their religious institutions. This talk explores the reasons why, and how we can help people of all ages find spiritual solace and human connection.

Enough is Enough: Chasing the Impossible Standards for American Moms

Angela Garbes: Essential Labor with Jessica Grose

Greenlight Books welcomes Keith Gessen to our Fort Greene events program in conversation with author and journalist Jessica Grose for an evening exploring how raising a child can show us what it means to invent the world anew.

“Grose’s fiery compassion is matched by her profoundly complex understanding of the material and her trenchant, witty prose…. A deeply researched and highly relatable analysis of American motherhood, past and present.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Like every mom, I, too, have screamed on the inside (and sometimes on the outside) while raising my four kids. I just want to do a good job—but that can feel like the impossible dream at times. Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustainability of American Motherhood helps us understand how mothers got to this place of outsized expectations from society and from ourselves. Jessica Grose has spent a career talking with experts and parents and has now mined her wealth of knowledge to write a book that is long overdue.” — Soledad O’Brien

“Stirring. …Mothers struggling to keep their heads above water will find camaraderie in this empathetic outing.” — Publishers Weekly

“This is the rare book that is both important for how we think about policy solutions to serious social problems, and also incredibly relatable and hard to put down.” — Emily Oster, author of Expecting Better, Cribsheet and The Family Firm

“In the all-too-timely Screaming on the Inside, Jessica Grose is direct and bracing in her assessment of how horrifically the United States serves its mothers and, in turn, its children. Enraging and elucidating, it’s also a pleasure to read.” — Rebecca Traister, author of Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger and writer-at-large for New York Magazine and The Cut

“This is the book I’ve been waiting for on contemporary motherhood: historically rooted, incisive, empathic, furious, while always asking how we actually move forward. If you think Screaming on the Inside is just a book for moms, you’re very wrong.” — Anne Helen Petersen, author of Out of the Office and Can’t Even and writer of Culture Study

Jessica’s New York Times Writing

Jessica Grose On Parenting | New York Times Newsletter

Jessica’s Hometown Bookstore | Signed Books

Honors, Awards & Recognition

Opinion Writer and Lead Parenting Editor | New York Times
Founding Editor | Lenny
The Next Wave: Top Professionals 35 & Under | LinkedIn
Named a Glamour “Game Changer”