HEATHER HAVRILESKY writes the popular advice column Ask Polly for New York magazine’s The Cut. She is the author of the memoir Disaster Preparedness (Riverhead, 2011) and the advice book How to Be a Person in the World (Doubleday, 2016). She is a columnist for New York magazine, and has written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, and NPR's All Things Considered, among others. She was Salon's TV critic for seven years. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and a loud assortment of dependents, most of them nondeductible.