About Samantha

Samantha is an Aquarius who doesn’t believe in astrology. She lives in San Francisco with her bookseller husband, her twin teens, and two incredibly frustrating cats. Schoech is pronounced “Shay” but no one would expect you to know that.

The professional stuff:

Samantha Schoech is a staff writer at NYT Wirecutter and a seasoned editor and content provider. She’s worked with lifestyle brands and publications such as Sunset, Houzz, Trulia, and OZY. She did a stint at Twitter back in the day and as the books editor for the San Francisco Chronicle. 

When she’s not writing for money, she devotes her time to writing fiction, humor, and personal essays which have appeared widely in magazines and books including Seventeen, The Gettysburg Review, The Sun, Glimmer Train, Flash Fiction Forward (W.W. Norton), and other places.

She received her M.A. in English and Creative Writing from the University of California, Davis, and has taught writing at Davis, the University of San Francisco, and local bookstores.

In 2014, she founded Independent Bookstore Day and was the program director for eight years. As a committed literary citizen, she co-founded the Rowland Writers Retreat in Aurora, NY, and is a member of the Writers Grotto in San Francisco. Oh, and sometimes she hosts Generation Women in San Francisco.

The braggy stuff:

Samantha once starred in a TV commercial for her beloved San Francisco Giants, did voices for Mark Fiore’s Pulitzer Prize-winning political animations, won the Erma Bombeck Humorist-in-Residence Award, and created what might be the world’s only anchovy-based dessert.

The early years:

Samantha was raised by divorced hippies mostly in Northern California but also in a Buddhist center in Vermont and a rural village in Mexico. It was the 80s and all she really wanted was modular salmon-colored furniture, bologna sandwiches on white bread, and a career as a sitcom star. That was not to be, but to this day she can milk a goat, chant in Sanskrit, and speak pretty good Spanish.