Emily Yoffe

Emily J. Yoffe (born October 15, 1955) is a journalist and contributing editor for The Atlantic. From 2009 to 2016 she was a regular contributor to Slate magazine, notably as Dear Prudence. She has also written for The New York Times; O, The Oprah Magazine; The Washington Post; Esquire; The Los Angeles Times; and many other publications. Yoffe began her career as a staff writer at The New Republic before moving on to other publications.

In 2006 outgoing columnist Margo Howard turned Slate’s Dear Prudence advice column, which appears four times per week, including one day of live chats and one day in which the letters are responded to using a video instead of text, over to Yoffe. In November 2015, she published her last "Dear Prudence" column, and has since been replaced by Mallory Ortberg, co-founder of The Toast.

She also did a podcast called Manners for the Digital Age with Slate’s then-technology columnist Farhad Manjoo.

She wrote a regular feature on Slate called Human Guinea Pig, in which she attempts unusual activities or hobbies. For Human Guinea Pig, she has tried hypnosis, and taken a vow of silence. She has become a street performer, a nude model for an art class, and a contestant in the Mrs. America beauty pageant.

In June 2005, Bloomsbury published Yoffe's What the Dog Did: Tales from a Formerly Reluctant Dog Owner. That year it was named Best Book of the Year by Dogwise, and selected as the Best General Interest Dog Book by the Dog Writers Association of America.

She has been a guest on The Colbert Report twice. She discussed her experiences as Slate's Human Guinea Pig, and an article about narcissistic personality disorder. She has been a guest on numerous radio programs, including The Emily Rooney Show and Minnesota Public Radio.

Yoffe wrote pieces about the worldwide disappearance of frogs and the crash of Air Florida Flight 90 for The New York Times Magazine . She has written op-eds for The Washington Post on global warming, motherhood, and politics.

Yoffe grew up in Newton, Massachusetts and graduated from Wellesley College in 1977.

• What the Dog Did: Tales from a Formerly Reluctant Dog Owner (2005)

• Dogwise: Best Book of the Year (2005)
• Dog Writers Association of America: Best General Interest Dog Book (2005)