Monica Heisey Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Collections

Monica Heisey is a comedian, author, and screenwriter from Toronto who currently makes her home in London. As a screenwriter, she has written for the likes of comedy Central’s “Gary and his Demons,” CBC’s Cavendish, “Workin’ Moms,” “Schitt’s Creek” on Netflix/CBC, and IFC/CBC’s “Baroness von Sketch Show.”

Monica is also responsible for the adaptation of “A Half Baked Idea” by Olivia Potts which is being developed by Rough Cut. Monica has also developed original projects for Marman alongside Laura Whitmore and for Objective Media working with Olga Koch the comedian.
She made the shortlist for Best Short at the Rhode Island Film Festival for her short film “Rest Stop.” Outside of her film writing endeavors, Monica’s work has been published in the likes of “VICE,” the “New Yorker,” the “Guardian,” the “New York Times,” and the “New Yorker” among several other online and print publications.

Heisey is also an acclaimed comedian that has performed stand-up, sketch, and improv at venues all over the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. Her sketch comedy writing has also won three screen awards in Canada.
She penned “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better” her first humor collection in 2015. The work was named Best Book of the Year by the Globe and Mail, National Post, and CBC and received praise from Lena Dunham and Rob Delaney.

Growing up, Monica Heisey loved reading books alongside her younger sister and a twin sister. During this time, her mother was a civil servant and her father worked as a lawyer.

Their parents encouraged them to read the classic but she found them particularly dry. However, they would sometimes find some funny ones from Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, which would make for a sweet confluence between her interests and those of her parents.
Monica Heisey particularly loved to read British novelists such as Douglas Adams and PG Wodehouse. At school, she actively participated in the performing arts and was involved in the improv troupe and in the writing of plays. Unlike what it is today, the improv team was thought to be cool by almost everyone.

In 2010, Monica moved to the United Kingdom to pursue a master’s degree in modern literature. She also began doing stand-up comedy so that she could meet people. She met Cariad Lloyd the comedian who became her friend. She was the one that made it possible for her to perform at Edinburgh.

After living in the United Kingdom for a few years on her student visa, she ran out of options even though she had not found stability as a freelance writer. She would then go back to Toronto and would get married to the man she had been having a long-distance relationship with for years.

Monica Heisey got married very young and right from the get-go, she felt that it was a very isolating experience. Since she married in her early twenties, she always felt that she had rushed into it without experiencing life.

She would ultimately decide on divorce and this too was an unnerving experience as she hardly had anyone that could relate to what she was going through. Most of her peers were unmarried and hence she struggled to find something to watch or read anything to relate to her experience.
She just could not find anything that could sum up her experience and often, she felt ridiculous getting divorced at just 28. She needed to find something that did not take divorce too seriously as she believed this would be appropriate for taking her heaviness away.
Monica knew what she needed was a memoir partly because she wanted to make it both funny even if it can be heavy. It was from this that she invented her characters Jo and Magie who had some exciting life plans but ended up divorcing and tearing them all up.

“Really Good, Actually” by Monica Heisey tells the story of Jon and Maggie. Maggie is really good and believes she is doing fine. Her graduate thesis on some obscure subject may be going nowhere, she is broke, and her marriage hardly lasted two years but at 29, she is determined to embrace her new designation as a young divorced woman.

She occasionally wakes up on the floor asking herself some tough questions and also intermittently dates. She now has time to eat hamburgers at 4 am, take up hobbies, and experience the sex life she believes she had been missing out on.
With the support of Merris her tough love academic advisor, Amy her newly divorced friend, and several of her chat group friend she barrels through life.

Monica Heisey takes a subject that is often explored in fiction and yet manages to come up with a new and fresh-feeling story. The work is a funny and laugh-out-loud story with some insightful observations.
Overall, it is a remarkable debut from a writer that promises to be one of the most interesting new voices in fiction.

Monica Heisey’s first work “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better” is a humorous collection of lists, advice, drawings, essays, and other writings. According to the author, she created the collection to help her readers live their best lives.
The work offers advice and tips on everything from how to make an apartment look just like how they look on design bogs, how to sext, deal with office politics, and even where to cry while in public.

Monica provides important guides to help people sort out their lives for good. For instance, Pizzas I Have Loved is a thought-provoking personal essay that when paired with an exercise such as Are You Being Flirted With can offer some perspective and gravitas to help one navigate the complexities of the contemporary world we live in.

It makes for a charming, smart, and funny work that is the perfect accompaniment for people facing a crisis in their lives. It can also make for a great gift to e relative one does not know very well but would like to impress.