Eat Joy: Stories & Comfort Food from 31 Celebrated Writers, Hardcover

"Food binds this book together, and each beautifully told story circles life's truths in ways that are surprising, often revelatory, and always moving. It's impossible not to love Eat Joy, and equally impossible not to want to bake and eat these dishes while reading. It's an extraordinary collection." --Dorie Greenspan, James Beard Award-winning author of Everyday Dorie

This collection of intimate, illustrated essays by some of America's most well-regarded literary writers explores how comfort food can help us cope with dark times--be it the loss of a parent, the loneliness of a move, or the pain of heartache.

Lev Grossman explains how he survived on "sweet, sour, spicy, salty, unabashedly gluey" General Tso's tofu after his divorce. Carmen Maria Machado describes her growing pains as she learned to feed and care for herself during her twenties. Claire Messud tries to understand how her mother gave up dreams of being a lawyer to make "a dressed salad of tiny shrimp and avocado, followed by prune-stuffed pork tenderloin." What makes each tale so moving is not only the deeply personal revelations from celebrated writers, but also the compassion and healing behind the story: the taste of hope.

NATALIE EVE GARRETT is an artist and writer, and the editor of The Artists' and Writers' Cookbook: A Collection of Stories with Recipes and the forthcoming Lonely Stories: 20 Celebrated Writers on the Joys & Perils of Being Alone. She lives in a town outside Washington, D.C., and along the Potomac River with her husband and two children.

MERYL ROWIN is an illustrator whose work has been commissioned by The New York Times, Lenny Letter, the Glamour Woman of the Year Awards, Travel + Leisure, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and Apartment Therapy. She lives in Los Angeles and previously worked on Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally's memoir, The Greatest Love Story Ever Told.