Claire Lombardo’s debut novel, The Most Fun We Ever Had, was an instant New York Times bestseller and has been translated or is forthcoming in over a dozen languages. Her second novel, Same As It Ever Was, was published in 2024 from Doubleday Books.

Claire is a graduate of the University of Illinois-Chicago and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her short fiction has appeared in, among others, Playboy, Barrelhouse Magazine, Little Fiction, and Longform. Her story, “I Only Want to Talk About the Nice Things,” was one of 2016’s Best of the Net, and was #1 on Longform’s 2015 fiction list.

Prior to publishing The Most Fun We Ever Had, Claire spent several years working with homeless children and families in Chicago. She has taught fiction writing at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Grinnell College and currently works part-time as a bookseller at Prairie Lights Books. A native of Oak Park, Illinois, she now lives in Iowa City, Iowa, with her dog, Renee.