Erin Chack Books in Order

Erin Chack was born and raised in New Jersey, and that home-state sensibility runs through her work: close observation, family stories, awkward moments, and a willingness to take everyday nonsense seriously enough to make it funny.

Her path to publishing began in digital media. Chack joined a major internet media company in 2013, where she worked as a writer and editor on quizzes, culture pieces, and personal essays. The work demanded quick thinking and an easy, direct way of talking to readers, skills that carried naturally into her longer writing.

She became part of a generation of writers who could move from a silly pop-culture prompt to a real confession without making the shift feel forced. In Chack's work, a joke can land first, then make room for anxiety, embarrassment, love, or fear.

Humor and hard things can sit at the same table.

Her first book, This Is Really Happening, arrived in 2017. It is a collection of personal essays about the messy business of growing up, from first love and friendship to college-age misadventures and the strange backstage rules of working for a big online media company. The stories are linked less by a single plot than by Chack's candid point of view and her habit of noticing the details other people might prefer to skip.

The book also deals with a much tougher chapter of her life. Chack was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma at nineteen and writes about chemotherapy, losing her hair, telling friends she had cancer, and trying to preserve some sense of normal life. She also writes about learning that her mother had cancer in the same year. Those essays are personal without asking for pity, and funny without pretending the experience was easy.

That balance is what readers often come to Chack for. Her stories can be goofy and blunt, but they also take young adulthood seriously: the pressure to seem fine, the way friendships change, the panic behind a casual joke, and the relief of finding people who stay. She writes as though she is telling a friend the whole story, including the part that makes her look ridiculous.

Her work has continued beyond the essay collection. She has written editorial pieces for major publications and moved into screen work, including writing synopses and developing film and television projects. It is a natural extension of her interest in character, dialogue, and the odd ways people explain themselves.

Chack divides her time between New York and Los Angeles. Wherever she is working, her writing keeps returning to the same useful idea: life can be painful, absurd, and very funny, sometimes all before lunch.