Julia Langbein holds a doctorate in art history and is the author of the novels Dear Monica Lewinsky and American Mermaid as well as a monograph about press art and modernist painting (Laugh Lines: Caricaturing Painting in Nineteenth-Century France). She has written about food, art, and travel for Bon Appétit, Gourmet, Eater, Salon, Frieze, and other publications, and received a 2024 James Beard Foundation Journalism Award. A native of Chicago, she lives outside of Paris with her family.