Samantha Irby

Samantha McKiver Irby (born February 13, 1980) is an American comedian, essayist, blogger, and television writer. She is the creator and author of the blog bitches gotta eat, where she writes humorous observations about her own life and modern society more broadly. Her books We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, and Wow, No Thank You. were both New York Times best-sellers. She is a recipient of the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for bisexual nonfiction.

She has been a writer and/or co-producer for TV shows, including HBO's reboot of Sex and the City, Work in Progress, Shrill, and Tuca & Bertie. In 2016, FX announced that they had purchased the television rights to Irby's 2013 memoir Meaty and her blog, intending to adapt them into a series.

Samantha McKiver Irby’s middle name is her maternal grandmother's maiden name. She was born on February 13, 1980, and grew up in Evanston, Illinois. Her mother was a nurse.

In several interviews and books, Irby has discussed caring for her mother, who had multiple sclerosis as a teenager. Irby attended Northern Illinois University but dropped out after her mother's death. Her father was in and out of her life and passed six months before her mother from hypothermia after suffering multiple heart attacks and strokes. Irby began writing in the late 2000s when she started a Myspace blog.