ABOUT

Mothers are the only real grownups. Everyone else is just dicking around.

—Sarah Hoover

Sarah Hoover is an essayist and cultural octopus with hands in many realms — the art, fashion, food, dance and literary worlds, for starters.

After getting her master’s degree in cultural theory from Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree in art history from New York University, Hoover spent her early career as an artist liaison, dealer and director at Gagosian.

But a creative at heart, Hoover started writing essays on pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood. It was a short piece in Vogue on the traumatic birth of her son and ensuing postpartum depression that sparked attention to her idiosyncratic approach to cultural thought, and soon she was contributing essays to The Strategist and Vogue on topics like her allergy to playing pretend with her kid and the oppressive consumer trend of wearing diaper bags. Hoover has also become a keen new professor, and is soon returning to Barnard to teach her popular summer course “Art History of the Exploited Feminist Self.”

Her debut memoir, The Motherload: Episodes from the Brink of Motherhood, is the January 2025 Belletrist Book Club pick, and is now available everywhere you buy books! In The Motherload, Hoover provides a candid and propulsive look at the journey women undertake as expectant mothers and wives from the early days of pregnancy through labor and beyond. Described by Oprah Daily as “…a long overdue reality check,” The Motherload is a darkly funny, raw, and radical takedown of the ideal of the maternal.

Hoover co-founded the Accelerator Committee at American Ballet Theater, which encourages cross-pollination between art, fashion, film and choreography. She sits on the board of Art Production Fund, which curates and produces major public art projects across the United States. She has also partnered with Coalition for the Homeless and Sky High Farm Foundation to help with fundraising and advocacy.

Hoover has been featured in the New Yorker, Harper’s Bazaar, The Cut, Vogue, Grub Street, Vanity Fair, the NYT, Tinx’s It’s Me Tinx podcast, Noor Tagouri’s The Process podcast, and Emily Ratajkowski’s High Low With Emrata podcast, among others.

You can follow her life, including her exasperation with parenthood and the expectations of domesticity via her instagram.

She lives with her husband and two kids in Manhattan.