Michelle Herman writes a popular family and relationship advice column for Slate and is the author of the novels (for grownups) Missing, Dog, Devotion, and Close-Up; her first novel for children, All the Time in the World, will be out in summer 2026. Her other books include four essay collections—The Middle of Everything, Stories We Tell Ourselves, Like A Song, and most recently If You Say So—and the collection of novellas A New and Glorious Life. For many years she taught creative writing at Ohio State, in the MFA program she directed and was a founder of in the early nineties.