Emma Cline

Emma Cline is an American writer and novelist from California. She published her first novel, The Girls, in 2016, to positive reviews. The book was shortlisted for the John Leonard Prize from the National Book Critics Circle and the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her story collection, Daddy, was published in 2020, and her second novel, The Guest, was published in 2023. Her stories have been published in The New Yorker, Tin House, Granta, and The Paris Review. In 2017, Cline was named one of Granta's Best of Young American Novelists, and Forbes named her one of their "30 Under 30 in Media". She is a recipient of the Plimpton Prize and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Life and career

Personal life Cline, born in 1989, was raised in Sonoma County, California. She was the second of seven children in her family. After graduating from Sonoma Academy, at age 16, Cline attended Middlebury College, where she studied art. Since then, her writing has been published in multiple journals.

The Girls

Cline's first novel, The Girls, was published in 2016 by Random House Publishing. American film producer Scott Rudin bought the film rights to the book, shortly before it was acquired by Random House. The novel is based, in part, on the Charles Manson cult and murders of the late 1960s. The story is told from the view point of Evie Boyd, a fourteen-year-old girl, whose childhood is changed when she is introduced to a cult. As an adult, Evie reflects on her actions, as a child, bringing up questions of what it means to grow up as a girl and how injustice, in the world, can lead to terrible violence. The movie production for the novel is in the development stages.

Daddy Cline's short story collection, Daddy, was published in 2020 by Random House Publishing. The New York Times called Cline "an astonishingly gifted stylist."

The Guest In May 2023, an exclusive excerpt from Cline's second novel The Guest appeared in Vogue. The book was published by Random House on May 16, 2023. The New York Times wrote that the novel "could be read as an entertaining series of misguided shenanigans interrupting the upper class’s summer vacation, but under Cline’s command, every sentence as sharp as a scalpel, a woman toeing the line between welcome and unwelcome guest becomes a fully destabilizing force". She has said that part of it was inspired by John Cheever's short story "The Swimmer." The Guest was a national bestseller and was longlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award.

Other endeavors Cline is the co-founder, along with Peter Mendelsund, of Picture Books, an imprint of Gagosian Gallery. They have published work by Ottessa Moshfegh, Joy Williams, Percival Everett, Lydia Millet and Sam Lipsyte.

In February 2017, Cline's former boyfriend Chaz Reetz-Laiolo made plagiarism accusations against Cline that were ultimately dismissed by a judge. Reetz-Laiolo said Cline installed a spyware program on his computer in order to read his personal work and emails without his consent. He demanded reparations and threatened to put forth a public court filing that included sexually explicit images and text messages of Emma Cline. Cline put forth a countersuit, arguing that the spyware was for her own protection because Reetz-Laiolo had been physically and emotionally abusive, and that the similarities between Reetz-Laito's work and The Girls were minimal.

Awards

Literary prizes

Honors

2017 Granta Best of Young American Novelists 2024 Guggenheim Fellowship