Elizabeth Gilbert is a journalist, author, and novelist who has written fiction, nonfiction, and short stories, including the New York Times bestselling memoir Eat Pray Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia (2006), which was turned into a film. She followed the book with the bestselling memoir Committed (2010) and Eat Pray Love Made Me Do It (2016), which tells stories inspired by Eat Pray Love readers. Other books by Gilbert include The Last American Man (2002), which was nominated for the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award; Pilgrims (1997), a short story collection that won the Pushcart Prize and was nominated for PEN/Hemingway Award; At Home on the Range (2012), a republication of her great-grandmother’s cookbook, with commentary; and the novels The Signature of All Things (2013), City of Girls (2019), and Stern Men (2000). She has also written articles for magazines like Spin, GQ, Esquire, and the New York Times Magazine. Her GQ article “The Muse of the Coyote Ugly Saloon” (1997) about working in a New York City bar was turned into the film Coyote Ugly (2000).

In Big Magic, Gilbert offers advice based on her experiences, successes, and struggles as a writer and journalist.