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About the Author

Emily Nemens

Emily Nemens’s debut novel, The Cactus League, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and named one of NPR’s and Lit Hub’s favorite books of 2020. Her stories have appeared in BOMB, The Gettysburg Review, n+1, and elsewhere; her illustrations have appeared in The New Yorker and in collaboration with Harvey Pekar. Emily spent over a decade editing literary quarterlies, including leading The Paris Review and serving as co-editor and prose editor of The Southern Review. She held the 2022-23 Picador Professorship (University of Leipzig) and teaches in the MFA program at Bennington College. She lives in central New Jersey with her husband and dog.

2026

Emily Nemens’s Clutch follows a group of five women, friends for twenty years, as they go through the biggest challenges of their lives, asking: When you’re hanging on by your fingernails, how can you extend a hand to the ones you love?

  1. Emily Nemens on midlife, friendship and her new novel

    Los Angeles Times

  2. 'Clutch' tells the story of 5 women and their lifelong friendship

    NPR

  3. For This College Friend Group, Midlife Has Entered the Chat

    The New York Times Book Review

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