Emily Roberson

Emily Roberson reworks classical mythology through contemporary media culture as an American novelist. Her debut, Lifestyles of Gods and Monsters, was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2019 as a YA novel. It recasts the myth of Ariadne and the Minotaur inside a royal entertainment empire where family life is packaged for television and social media. Sixteen-year-old Ariadne leads contestants into the Labyrinth, but the arrival of Theseus forces her to weigh family loyalty, public spectacle, and the fate of the monster. The book combines Greek myth, celebrity culture, and romance in a fast-moving story about family dynamics and a life exposed to public consumption. Roberson also wrote Life, Motherhood & the Pursuit of the Perfect Handbag, a comic novel about work, parenthood, and personal ambition. Across these books, she uses recognizable cultural frameworks to examine who controls a woman’s story and how private choices survive public expectations.