One of the greatest pleasures in having a website is having Google Analytics. This means I get to see what people search in order to find my page. If the copyedits on my story collection were a Rorshach test (see my last post), then looking at other people’s search queries is like eavesdropping on a conversation about yourself at a cocktail party. Juicy!

One of the things people often search is ‘Emma Straub Wedding Poems.’ I suppose they’re looking to find out what poems we had at our wedding, and not which poems of mine would be wedding appropriate (answer: very few). The answer is Frank O’Hara’s ‘Having a Coke With You,’ which you can hear him read here.

Another thing people often search is ‘Emma Straub brownies,’ the recipe for which you can find here.

Sometimes people stumble onto my pages after searching for something else entirely. Some of my favorite examples: Bianca Jagger, Oberlin College Womb Chair, Future Bible Heroes Vacationland, Did Lucille Ball Live in Metuchen New Jersey. I hope they were as happy to find me as I was to find them.

Of course, most people just search for my name, or the name of one of my books, and that’s lovely, too.

In the interest of fairness, here are some things I’ve googled recently: 5 Under 35, Park Slope Yoga Center Schedule, Upstairs at the Square, Mindy Kaling.

Yours, with googly eyes,

Emma