Jen Spyra Books in Order

If you're new to Jen Spyra: Big Time
If you want dark, absurd short fiction: Big Time
If you like satirical takes on modern life: Big Time

Jen Spyra grew up in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, and by her own account was more of a big reader than a future TV comedy writer. She loved old Hollywood, film noir, and dark 19th-century fiction long before she thought of herself as someone who'd write jokes for a living.

That came later.

After studying English at Barnard College, Spyra found her way into improv in Chicago. She has said that comedy did not feel like an obvious career when she was a kid, but improv changed the equation. It taught her how to find the game in a scene, push it further, and surprise herself, skills that would carry into everything she wrote after that.

She went on to earn an MFA in playwriting and screenwriting from Northwestern University. From there, the path looked more like real working-writer life than a glamorous montage: she spent a short stretch as a writer's assistant in Los Angeles, landed a fellowship at The Onion, and then stayed on. At The Onion, she became a senior writer and also headed the editorial video department as a writer, director, and producer.

Then came late night. Spyra joined The Late Show with Stephen Colbert as a staff writer and spent four seasons there, turning out jokes and sketches on a schedule that leaves little room for overthinking. She has described that world as a volume game, one where you learn to survive rejection, keep pitching, and move on fast. Later, she also became the show's announcer, so plenty of viewers know her voice even if they do not know her name.

Her work has also appeared in places like The New Yorker, McSweeney's, The New York Times, and New York Magazine, and she has written and developed projects for television and film. The thread running through all of it is easy to spot. She likes genre, she likes rules, and she likes the fun of breaking them.

She likes high stakes.

That sensibility is all over Big Time, her first book, a short story collection published in 2021. The stories take familiar bits of modern life and tilt them sideways: a woman chasing the perfect bridal body, a prehistoric influencer, a snowman who is definitely not meant for children, and a 1940s starlet dropped into modern Hollywood. Readers who click with Spyra usually like that mix of absurd setups and real feelings, especially the way the jokes keep colliding with vanity, ambition, jealousy, anxiety, and the need to be seen.

One of the smart things about Spyra's work is that, under all the silliness, the characters usually want something badly. They want to belong, win, be admired, get ahead, or stop feeling ridiculous. That gives the comedy some weight. Even when the setup is wild, the emotional engine is recognizable, which is a big part of why Big Time feels sharper than a stack of one-liners.

Today, Spyra still works across prose, television, and performance. She has continued doing voice work, including on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and she moves easily between literary comedy and show business without sounding trapped in either world. That mix suits her work. It knows pop culture well, but it also knows people are strange, ambitious, and often funniest when they are trying very hard to seem fine.