Ada Cal­houn is the author of Crush, a nov­el, named one of the most anticipated books of 2025 by a dozen publications, including The Washington Post, Vulture, and Time. In a starred review, Booklist said, "Suspense is the primary draw for this angsty, metaphysical, literature-besotted love story... Crush (such a charged word) interrogates all that we think we know about love and soul mates, commitment and conviction, while tracking the long struggle to fully become oneself and do right." It was hailed on the Today Show as the month's Best Romance and praised by the Washington Post for its "whirlwind of desire and possibility." The Boston Globe said, "Crush reveals the sly ways we delude ourselves into accepting what’s good enough and the liberating ways we can recover our joie de vivre as well as our autonomy.”

Her last book, Also a Poet: Frank O’Hara, My Father, and Me, was named one of the Best Books of 2022 by the New York Times, Wash­ing­ton Post, Oprah Dai­ly, and NPR; fea­tured on PBS News Hour and the Today show; and longlist­ed for an Andrew Carnegie Medal for Non­fic­tion. Times crit­ic Alexan­dra Jacobs called it her favorite mem­oir of the year; Hud­son Book­sellers called it the non­fic­tion book of the year. 

Her instant New York Times best­seller Why We Can’t Sleep: Wom­en’s New Midlife Cri­sis, was an expan­sion of her viral sto­ry for Oprah​.com about the unique cir­cum­stances faced by Gen­er­a­tion X women. One of the Ama­zon Edi­tors’ Best Non­fic­tion Books of 2020, a Goodreads Choice Award Final­ist, and an Indie Next Pick, Why We Can’t Sleep was one of the biggest books of the sea­son accord­ing to the New York Times, Parade, and O mag­a­zine. It was trans­lat­ed into mul­ti­ple for­eign languages.

Cal­houn’s pri­or two books are the New York City his­to­ry St. Marks Is Dead: The Many Lives of Amer­i­ca’s Hippest Street, a New York Times Edi­tors’ Pick named one of the best books of 2015 by Kirkus Reviews, the Boston Globe, Orlan­do Week­ly, the New York Post, and the Vil­lage Voice; and the mem­oir Wed­ding Toasts I’ll Nev­er Give, which came out of a viral Mod­ern Love col­umn and was fea­tured twice on the Today show.

Past jobs include crime reporter for the New York Post, fre­quent con­trib­u­tor to The New York Times Book Review, and the­ater list­ings edi­tor for New York mag­a­zine. She is an A‑list ghost­writer, hav­ing anony­mous­ly col­lab­o­rat­ed on thir­ty major non­fic­tion books in the past dozen years, includ­ing sev­er­al #1 New York Times bestsellers.

She has writ­ten for Time, Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Trav­el­er, the Times Lit­er­ary Sup­ple­ment, the New Repub­lic, Bill­board, Cos­mopoli­tan, the Wash­ing­ton Post, and Red­book; and con­tributed three essays to the New York­er​’s ​“Page-Turn­er” col­umn; and three ​“Mod­ern Love,” and four ​“Lives” columns to the New York Times. Her con­tri­bu­tion to Beast­ie Boys Book was called ​“one of the more effec­tive guest-star turns.” 

Her nation­al news report­ing has won sev­er­al awards, includ­ing a USC-Annen­berg Nation­al Health Jour­nal­ism Fel­low­ship, a Kiplinger fel­low­ship, a CCF Media Award (for her New York Times Mag­a­zine work on a legal chal­lenge in Alaba­ma), a Croly Award, and an Ali­cia Pat­ter­son Foun­da­tion fel­low­ship. She received a Mac­Dow­ell colony stay in 2013 for St. Marks Is Dead, and has been grant­ed sev­er­al res­i­den­cies in the New York Pub­lic Library’s schol­ars’ rooms, includ­ing in 2023 – 24. In 2023 she was a fel­low at the Hawthorn­den Cas­tle in Scotland. 

She is cofounder the non­fic­tion wom­en’s bar night Sob Sis­ters. She’s taught pub­lic affairs report­ing at Hof­s­tra Uni­ver­si­ty, cre­ative non-fic­tion at the Rut­gers Sum­mer Con­fer­ence, mem­oir and pro­pos­al writ­ing at the Mia­mi Book Fair’s Writ­ers Insti­tute (for which she served as the first Emerg­ing Writer Fel­low­ship non­fic­tion men­tor); and mem­oir for three sum­mers at the Omega Insti­tute in Upstate New York. She’s served on pan­els at a dozen book fes­ti­vals and toured to book­stores and libraries in two-dozen U.S. cities and to the UK.

In a cov­er pro­file, the Vil­lage Voice described her as ​“cheer­ful and man­ner­ly.” The New York Times: ​“effer­ves­cent and con­ver­sa­tion­al.” Pub­lish­ers Week­ly: ​“With tou­sled bleach-blonde hair, she gives off a kind of Deb­bie Har­ry, cir­ca the 1970s, energy.”