Laurie Frankel
Bestselling and Award-Winning Author


Laurie Frankel is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of five novels: The Atlas of Love, Goodbye For Now, This Is How It Always Is, One Two Three and Family Family. Her writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Publisher’s Weekly, People Magazine, Lit Hub, The Sydney Morning Herald, and other publications. She is the recipient of the Washington State Book Award and the Endeavor Award and was recently named one of the fifty most influential women in Seattle where she lives. Her novels have been translated into more than twenty-five languages, optioned for film and television, and selected for nationwide book clubs such as Reese’s Book Club x Hello Sunshine and Target.

A former college professor, Frankel has taught a wide range of classes from introductory creative writing to advanced Shakespeare, playwriting to gender studies. She’s a gifted teacher and enthusiastic, engaging speaker and is particularly adept at tailoring lectures, discussions, and workshops. She customizes presentations for audiences brand new to a topic versus writers and readers looking to deepen their knowledge or practice, for intimate small group sessions versus audiences that fill ballrooms, and anything in between.

Though Frankel now writes full-time, she continues to teach at a variety of writing retreats, workshops, conferences, and non-profit organizations. She is an inspiring and sought-after speaker for groups large and small on a wide range of topics and is happy to work with your group to determine how to best meet your needs and cater to your audience.

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HARDCOVER
Henry Holt and Co.

From New York Times bestselling author, Laurie Frankel, comes a propulsive, sharply funny, and strikingly tender novel about how families are sometimes formed in the most unexpected ways.


HARDCOVER
Henry Holt and Co.

A timely, topical novel about love and family that will make you laugh and cry...and laugh again..


TRADE PAPERBACK
Flatiron Books

This is a novel about revelations, transformations, fairy tales, and family. And it’s about the ways this is how it always is: Change is always hard and miraculous and hard again, parenting is always a leap into the unknown with crossed fingers and full hearts, children grow but not always according to plan.


TRADE PAPERBACK
St. Martin's Griffin

In this sparkling and wise debut novel, The Atlas of Love, Frankel's unforgettable heroines prove that home is simply where the love is.


This Is How It Always Is This Is How It Always Is is a critically-acclaimed, New York Times bestselling novel about a family with five boys, the youngest of whom becomes a girl. Its author, Laurie Frankel, also has a daughter who is transgender. Frankel can speak about gender identity and LGBT-issues generally, what it’s like to tour the country with a book that speaks to such a divisive topic, what happens when your inbox and social media feeds fill with hate mail and threats because of something you’ve written, and how raising a transgender child is no different than raising any other child for this is truly how it always is.
Is This True? Truth vs. Fiction While she was on tour with her bestselling novel This Is How It Always Is, the most frequent question put to Laurie Frankel was, “Why didn’t you write a memoir?” It’s a good question. Why make up a family with a transgender child when you’re a member of one in real life? Why make up a small town poisoned by a big company, as she has in her forthcoming novel One Two Three, when there are so many documented corporate corruption scandals? Why write speculative fiction about social media, as in Frankel’s Endeavor Award-winning novel Goodbye For Now, when there’s so much nonfiction social media all around us? Frankel can speak to the lines between fiction and non- fiction, novel and memoir, made-up and true, as well as the challenges of writing (and reading) about real life, family, identity, and other timely and personal topics.
Craft Talks A college writing and literature professor for many years, Frankel can present a wide variety of craft talks to a wide variety of audiences, and she’s happy to tailor them to your needs. They can be broad-stokes topics such as: reading like a writer, buckling down and making progress, advice for the creative life, why literature and reading are important. Or they can be more specific workshops: novel prep, process journaling, editing.


Check out Laurie’s website

Follow Laurie on Twitter

Read or listen to Laurie’s interview with Morning Edition, NPR

Check out Laurie’s piece for the Modern Love Podcast and read it on The New York Times

Read Laurie’s piece in The Guardian

Check out Laurie’s article in People Magazine

Good Morning America lists Family, Family: A Novel as one of 15 New Books to Read for the New Year.

Laurie Frankel has a fantastic essay running now in The Washington Post about what it was like writing FAMILY FAMILY in our current social environment. Plus, FAMILY FAMILY is The New York Public Library’s Book of the Day on February 1, 2024 and Laurie’s podcast interviews on BiblioLifestyle’s “The Reader’s Couch” and The Writing Table are now available!

Vulture includes Family Family by Laurie Frankel in their roundup of “6 Great Audiobooks to listen to this Month”

"Laurie's presentation was simply fantastic. She was thoughtful, kind and funny. She presented the themes of her book so that every person watching could make a personal connection to the story. I'm confident that by the conclusion of the program all of our guests felt inspired by her message."
-Roz Topolski, Community Engagement Program Coordinator, Vernon Area Public Library District

Praise for FAMILY FAMILY "Highly recommended for fans of Frankel and those who enjoy literary fiction featuring witty dialogue and thought-provoking topics."
Library Journal starred review

"...Frankel offers a hilarious and sobering view of adoptive parenting through her portrayals of the cheerful and honest India and Rebecca’s open-minded adoptive mother...this is great fun." —Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly

“Frankel finds the truth of modern family within the sparkly, funny characters....Suggest this warmhearted tale to readers of Jennifer Weiner.”
Booklist

“A very unusual, and very Frankel, adoption story....Kevin Wilson fans who haven't yet tried Frankel should...Full of warmth, humor, and sound advice.”
Kirkus

Praise for ONE TWO THREE “Frankel has given us another socially conscious 21st-century fable in a voice that is part pastor, part political speechwriter, and part Fannie Flagg. Clever, charming, and always on message.”
Kirkus Reviews

“I loved One Two Three from start to finish. What you always get with a Laurie Frankel novel is an engrossing plot—she’s a terrific storyteller—but for me the best part of any of her novels are the three-dimensional characters she’s created, characters for whom she has empathy and palpable affection, characters who seem to leap off the page and into the heart of the reader. And that’s never been more evident than in One Two Three. I highly recommend it—it’s a book that will immediately draw you in and provide great reading pleasure.”
—Nancy Pearl, author of the Book Lust series and George & Lizzie

“In One Two Three, Laurie Frankel’s signature wit, warmth, and fierce compassion shine with the story of three courageous, memorable triplets. I loved this book from the first line to the last.”
—Marilyn Dahl, Shelf Awareness

Praise for This is how it Always is “It’s early days, but this big-hearted novel about a family with a transgender child is in the lead for the most sensitively and sincerely told story of 2017. Frankel’s portrayal of even the most openhearted parents’ doubts and fears around a child’s gender identity elevates this novel.”
—People, “Book of the Week”

“Deeply satisfying…An intimate family story…Day-to-day parenting dilemmas are where Frankel shines.”
The New York Times Book Review

“Brave, complicated, occasionally horrifying and frequently very funny…Frankel is a first-rate storyteller."
Seattle Times

“Every once in a while, I read a book that opens my eyes in a way I never expected.”
—Reese Witherspoon, (Reese’s Book Club x Hello Sunshine book pick)

“It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me think.”
—Liane Moriarty, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Big Little Lies