Steven Rowley is the bestselling author of Lily and the Octopus, a Washington Post Notable Book of 2016; The Editor, named by NPR and Esquire magazine as one of the Best Books of 2019; The Guncle, a Goodreads Choice Awards finalist for 2021 Novel of the Year and winner of The 22nd Thurber Prize for American Humor; and The Celebrants published May 2023.

His fiction has been published in twenty languages. Originally from Portland, Maine, he is a graduate of Emerson College and currently resides in Palm Springs with his husband, the writer Byron Lane.