Mallory O'Meara

Biography

Mallory O’Meara is the bestselling author of The Lady from the Black Lagoon, which won the 2019 SCIBA award for Biography and the 2019 Rondo award for Book of the Year, Girly Drinks, which won a 2022 James Beard Award, and Girls Make Movies, which was a 2023 Junior Library Guild Selection.
Every week, she co-hosts the literary podcast Reading Glasses.

Her next book, Daughter of Daring: The Trick-Riding, Train-Leaping, Road-Racing Life of Helen Gibson, Hollywood’s First Stuntwoman is forthcoming from Hanover Square Press in February 2025.

She lives in the mountains near Los Angeles with her two cats, where she is working on her next nonfiction book.

You can follow Mallory on Twitter @malloryomeara or visit her website malloryomeara.com.

Her last name is pronounced like oh-BEAR-ah or oh-PEAR-ah.

Extended biography

Mallory O’Meara is an award winning and bestselling historian and author. Her first book, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick, won the 2019 SCIBA award for Biography and the 2019 Rondo award for Book of the Year. It was nominated for both a Locus and a Hugo award.

Her second book, Girly Drinks: A World History of Women and Alcohol was released in late 2021 to critical acclaim. It won a James Beard Award and was nominated for a 2022 Spirited Award.

Her third book, Girls Make Movies, a filmmaking guide for younger readers illustrated by artist Jen Vaughn was just released in the spring of 2023. It was chosen as a 2023 Junior Library Guild Selection and named a Best Children’s Book of Summer 2023 by Book Riot.

Her next adult nonfiction from Hanover Square Press will be released in February 2025: Daughter of Daring: The Trick-Riding, Train-Leaping, Road-Racing Life of Helen Gibson, Hollywood’s First Stuntwoman.

Since 2017, Mallory has hosted the popular literary podcast Reading Glasses alongside director and writer Brea Grant. Reading Glasses is part of the Maximum Fun podcast network and focuses on reader culture.

Mallory writes all her books long hand with fountain pens, mainly a LAMY 2000, a Kaweco Liliput, a Nahvalur Original Plus, and a TWSBI Eco.

A Massachusetts native, she now lives in the mountains near Los Angeles with her two cats. Although she spends most of her time writing books, reading books, and talking about books, she loves listening to metal, checking out new monster movies, and watching hockey. Her teams are PWHL Boston and the Washington Capitals. She has been a powerlifter since 2019. Bourbon is her drink of choice.

You can follow Mallory on Instagram @malloryomeara or visit her website malloryomeara.com.

Helenna Santos 2024

Daughter of Daring: The Trick-Riding, Train-Leaping, Road-Racing Life of Helen Gibson, Hollywood’s First Stuntwoman is forthcoming from Hanover Square Press in February 2025.

“A wide-ranging rodeo of a book that starts as the cliffhanger
biography of Helen Gibson and quickly becomes a women-first history of
Hollywood that comes at you as fast and powerful as a runaway train." — NYT Bestselling Author Grady Hendrix

“The book was as vivacious and thrilling as the career it tracks. An inspiring reminder that as women in Hollywood, we're not carving a path - we're reminding the world of our legacy. It was a fast-paced and fun history of Hollywood roped together by the amazing life of Helen Gibson. Seriously made me proud to be a woman working in film.” — Filmmaker and CAMGIRL Author Isa Mazzei

PRAISE FOR GIRLS MAKE MOVIES

A 2023 Junior Library Guild Selection
A Best Children’s Book of Summer 2023 by Book Riot

“The breadth of information is impressive and will offer readers a greater understanding of and appreciation for the work that goes into filmmaking as well as the skills required for each role . . . future filmmakers will find this a good starting point.”
 ―Kirkus

“This bright, breezy, and informative manual walks young women (or any reader interested in the nuts and bolts of film production) through the tasks involved with making movies . . . enthusiastic and encouraging.”
 ―Booklist

PRAISE FOR GIRLY DRINKS

Winner of the 2022 James Beard Award

Nominated for a 2022 Spirited Award

“[A] thorough, and thoroughly entertaining, history… Elegantly woven into each cheeky chapter is rigorous historical context… O’Meara glides easily from the 17th-century pulquerias of Mexico to the feminine “fern bars” of the 1970s, making sure to not to forget the queen of girly drinks: the Cosmopolitan. Provoking both thought and laughter, this serves as bracing refreshment from a master textual mixologist.” –Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Feminist and very funny... O'Meara deftly blends in equal measures of social history, gossip, and solid research, and adds enjoyable footnotes... women have discovered, invented, advanced, championed, and celebrated alcohol. Ladies? This calls for a drink." –Booklist

"At last, the feminist history of booze we’ve been waiting for! After centuries of being excluded, ignored, or treated as accessories, Mallory O’Meara has put women at the center of a global history of alcohol. From winemakers and distillers to activists, leaders, and change-makers, Girly Drinks takes us on a whirlwind tour of the role women have played in what we drink, and how, when, and why we drink it."
—AMY STEWART, author of The Drunken Botanist

"Girly Drinks is anything but—a raw shot of boozy history that stings as well as it soothes!"
—PATTON OSWALT

"With this lively book Mallory O’Meara has provided a real service, giving us not only a long-overdue new perspective on a great many familiar issues, but also raising all kinds of other issues that are unfamiliar and shouldn’t be."
—DAVID WONDRICH, author of Imbibe

"Cheers to Mallory O’Meara and her serious yet seriously entertaining treatise on the history of gendered drinks. Girly Drinks will introduce you to queens and nuns, bootleggers and bartenders, telling their stories and proving the point that all drinks are girly drinks."
—JEANETTE HURT, author of Wisconsin Cocktails and Drink Like a Woman

Praise for the lady from the black lagoon

2019 SCIBA Book Award Winner for Biography

A Hugo and Locus Award Finalist

Winner of the Rondo Hatton Book of the Year Award

The Los Angeles Times Bestseller

A Thrillist Best Book of the Year

A Book Riot Best Book of 2019

One of Booklist’s 10 Best Art Books of the Year

“Captivating and exhaustively researched…This is a fascinating slice of Hollywood history with a feminist slant, correcting a sexist wrong from decades ago and restoring Patrick to her rightful place of esteem.”

–Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“There's never a dull moment in this beautiful, heartfelt tribute to a pioneering special-effects designer and animator and passionate call for change in the industry that forgot her.”

–Booklist (starred review)

“Fascinating…This is a book that O’Meara was born to write, and she seamlessly meshes her own life story with that of her heroine in a way similar to how Julie Powell paid tribute to Julia Child in Julie and Julia…Even if you’re not a fan of horror films, The Lady from the Black Lagoon is a riveting, sincere Hollywood saga that will quickly win your heart.”

–BookPage (starred review)

“The Lady From the Black Lagoon restores Patrick to the pantheon of Hollywood trailblazers, where she belonged all along.”

--Refinery29

“O’Meara has seen to it that [Milicent Patrick] won’t be forgotten again. Her book is a fierce and often very funny guide to the distaff side of geekdom and reproduces photos and examples of Patrick’s work, many previously unpublished. That alone would be worth the price of admission to the world of this complex, brilliant artist.”

– Los Angeles Times

“Like the creature, The Lady From the Black Lagoon is a hybrid — part biography, part memoir, part detective story and part #MeToo pushback against the film industry’s deep-rooted patriarchal tendencies, highlighted in revelations of sexually predatory behavior by male actors, directors and moguls.”

--The Washington Post

“O'Meara's chatty, impassioned book, The Lady from the Black Lagoon, lifts Milicent Patrick out of the mire of obscurity. There's so much great material here — including Patrick's childhood at Hearst Castle and her early career as one of Disney's first female animators — that her own life story could be a film.”

--NPR