Alumni ‘It’s a Love Letter to All the Terrible Aspects of My Personality’ Stories You May Like Using Found Objects, California Artist Turns Trash to Treasure For These Two Classmates, Sustainable Travel Is in the ‘Bag’ He Couldn’t Find a Kids’ Book about Ithaca—So He Wrote One In a new memoir, TV writer and stand-up performer Alison Leiby ’06 tackles comedy, tragedy, and everything in between By Melissa Newcomb “After I realized I didn’t want kids, I would remind [my mother] from time to time when it felt relevant, like in the middle of a long phone call or milling around the Nordstrom shoe department,” Alison Leiby ’06 recalls in her new memoir. “You know, the prime times to drop on your parents that they’ll never become grandparents.” That anecdote—a serious topic dispatched with the comedian’s signature wry humor—offers a taste of the tone of Leiby’s book, I’m a Lot: Surviving Myself and All the People I've Been. “In writing it, I learned a lot about my relationship to who I am,” says the Arts & Sciences alum. “It’s a love letter to all the terrible aspects of my personality. You’re allowed to not be perfect or good. You can give yourself a little bit more grace. Yeah, I was a mess in my twenties, but that’s fine; it’s what your twenties are for.” In the collection of 14 essays—which Harper’s Bazaar calls a “laugh-out-loud treatise on what it truly means to embrace every part of yourself”—Leiby contemplates such issues as coping with chronic pain and opting for an abortion, along with more lighthearted topics, like playing sports, being a cat mom, and obsessing over the “Real Housewives” shows. “For creative and ambitious women, Alison Leiby’s lifelong Diet Coke-fueled struggle to separate her work from her worth will be illuminating,” says Booklist, “while also emphasizing how ridiculous it is that such a battle exists.” A central theme of Leiby’s memoir is her earlier-in-life struggles to form an identity amid changing interests and circumstances. You’re allowed to not be perfect or good. You can give yourself a little bit more grace. Yeah, I was a mess in my twenties, but that’s fine; it’s what your twenties are for. In her teens, Leiby went from avid competitive swimmer to Big Red rowing recruit to someone who could barely walk without pain due to spinal degeneration, and who faced life-threatening complications after back surgery. The former English major also cycled through potential careers—from aspiring academic to jobs in publishing and museum PR—before finding her calling in comedy. As she writes: “I think that’s what we all feel pressured to do on some level: define ourselves again and again.” As a freshman rower. Leiby’s memoir is the latest project in a career that has taken her from open mic nights in the backrooms of NYC bars to TV writers’ rooms to performing Off-Broadway. She wrote for a spinoff of Hulu’s “Triumph the Insult Comic Dog” devoted to the 2016 presidential election before moving to Comedy Central, where she worked on the Trump Administration spoof “The President Show” and on “The Opposition with Jordan Klepper,” a news satire starring a former “Daily Show” correspondent. “I was getting kind of wrung out in late night,” she recalls. “I knew I could write some really edgy, interesting stuff about what’s happening to women, but they didn’t want that. I was exhausted by that and knew I had to make a change.” Stories You May Like Using Found Objects, California Artist Turns Trash to Treasure For These Two Classmates, Sustainable Travel Is in the ‘Bag’ Leiby made the shift to series television, working on two seasons of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” Amazon Prime’s critically acclaimed dramedy about a 1960s Manhattanite who discovers a talent for stand-up after her marriage dissolves. She later penned an episode of the Amy Schumer show “Life & Beth.” (She has twice shared Writers Guild of America award nominations, for “The President Show” and “Mrs. Maisel.”) For creative and ambitious women, Alison Leiby’s lifelong Diet Coke-fueled struggle to separate her work from her worth will be illuminating while also emphasizing how ridiculous it is that such a battle exists. Booklist After years of penning jokes for other performers, Leiby wrote and starred in a one-woman stand-up show that eventually had an Off-Broadway run. Titled Oh God: A Show About Abortion, it was inspired by her own choice to terminate a pregnancy—and finding the experience to be surprisingly mundane, which made her wonder why stories like hers were rarely represented in popular culture. “Just a few weeks earlier I’d had two root canals and that experience was harder in every conceivable way: physically, emotionally, financially,” she writes in her memoir. “A lifetime of expecting this to be tragic and traumatic and overwhelming was wrong.” The show launched as abortion rights were being upended, with the Supreme Court ultimately overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized the procedure for half a century. “Leiby doesn’t just anticipate your expectations. She subverts them,” the New York Times said, going on to call Oh God a “deftly funny, jarringly understated show [that] doesn’t respond to the news so much as clarify it.” In 2022, the Washington Post featured Leiby (left) and bestie Natasha Pickowicz ’06 for the "friendship sandwich" recipe they've been sharing since their days on the Hill. The attention surrounding the show helped Leiby shape her memoir, which she’d been pondering for years. Now, in addition to promoting the book, she’s continuing to do stand-up and produce her podcast, Ruined with Alison Leiby and Halle Kiefer, in which she and a co-host humorously dissect (and spoil the endings of) horror movies. “Comedy is a really good way to start a conversation about something that people don’t want to talk about,” Leiby observes. “To me, that’s the power of comedy.” Top: Leiby performing her one-woman show. (Photo by Mindy Tucker; all other images provided.) Published September 8, 2026 Leave a Comment Cancel replyOnce your comment is approved, your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment * Name * Class Year Email * Save my name, email, and class year in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ Other stories You may like Bear Hugs O, Christmas Tree! Bryant Park’s Evergreen Grew on Alum’s Farm Chime In Recalling the ’50s on the Hill, an Era of ‘Gracious Living’ Campus & Beyond With a ‘Last Lecture,’ Hockey Coach Offers Words of Wisdom