Behind the Scenes at the Today Show

And how it works to go on the Today Show in general, backstage pass!

I went on the Today Show twice this week, which is kind of crazy given that the Today Show is in midtown and I don’t really leave Brooklyn veery often, but what am I going to do, say NO to Al Roker? I would rather die.

Given this double-header, I thought it might be fun to give a little backstage peek at how it works over there! Please keep in mind that my memory is a gap-toothed sieve and that all dates and facts are approximate.

It all started in 2016. Here I am with Claire, who has been my publicist at Riverhead since 2011.

Here’s what I remember about that first visit: in the pre-Covid days, you would go in, and they would do your hair and make-up. (You can see my eyeliner above. Do I wear eyeliner in my actual life? Do I know how to apply it? I do not, I do not.) I was sitting in the make-up chair getting beautified, and Jenna Bush Hager was in the chair next to me. I am a good New York City girl, and can count the times I have spoken to a famous person (or even acknowledged that I noticed them) on one hand—apologies to Liev Shrieber¹, I was a really, really drunk twenty year old. So there was no way I would have spoken to her. But then, to my great surprise, she looks up at me and says, you’re Emma Straub! I love your books! And proceeds to go into detail about my novels. In case you’re wondering if that happens a lot to novelists, lol. So she had me for life. Here’s the thing about Jenna—she reads more books than most booksellers I know, which is a lot. She is the real real real deal.

The first few times I was on, I was with my friend Isaac Fitzgerald (who was then working for Buzzfeed, and in the above photo has a broken arm inside his shirt, omg Isaac what on earth) and thriller author Brad Thor, who told me he traveled with a gun always, and had it in his hotel room in his gun case. Not remotely terrifying! You can tell they did my hair and makeup again.

Isaac got his arm back, thank god. Then I was in a trio with Isaac and my friend, the very lovely romance novelist Jasmine Guillor several times. Here’s how those segments work—the Today Show gives you a list of categories (romance, thriller, beach read, non-fiction, yadda yada), and you come up with some titles and send them back—I think they have only ever asked me to sub something out if it doubled up on something they had already covered—they are hands off in a really beautiful, trusting way that you wouldn’t necessarily assume given that the show is being beamed into god knows how many millions of households live every week day.

When Jenna started her book club, I was lucky enough to be one of the first picks. I believe I was number 15? It’s all a little fuzzy because it was May 2020, which you may remember as a nightmare hellscape. One of the really nice things about her book club is that she often invites authors back, and so you get to see all these wonderful authors, like my friend Courtney Sullivan, pictured above, just as cute as can be.

Once they had me on the Megyn Kelly hour, remember that? Was it her own show? I think it was her own show. But it was me and Isaac and Brad again and it was Christmas and it was so weird and I felt very very very uncomfortable being there and it was right before Christmas and they had some NBC pages bring out presents on a small train. NBC pages are incredible, have never met one that wasn’t an A++ student sort of a person, never dopey like Kenneth on 30 Rock, you can tell that every page will someday rule the world.

You know who is as good as she seems on television? Hoda Kotb. Hoda forever. Also, do you ever wonder about how many bright coats the hosts have for when they have to stand outside in the plaza? Well, I’ll show you.

Me n Claire are older now but we’re still cute. (Photo circa 2022, which is somehow three years ago.)

They let me and my mom go to TV in our matching outfits.

Basically, it’s an amazing place. I don’t know if all morning shows are this friendly. I went on GMA once—maybe twice? Twice I think. I am open to beautiful, on-going love affairs in other places too. It does seem like a uniquely supportive work environment. Today, when my publicist Elyse and I got there, Carson Daly opened the door for us. That was nice of him. Al Roker and I got a little misty-eyed at each other when talking about reading to little babies. Al Roker reminds me of my dad. What I’m saying is that I love the Today Show. They aren’t paying me to say this. They aren’t paying me at all! Sometimes things are as nice as they seem.

1. When I was at the Today show YESTERDAY, so was Parker Posey. Swoon!!! When I got back to the bookstore, I was telling some of the booksellers that Parker!! Posey!! had been there, and they did not know who she was!! If you too are new to Parker Posey, please start with Party Girl, where you will also meet a very young Liev Schrieber.