Emily Flake

2026 | 3nd Thurber Prize

Emily Flake’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, McSweeney's, The Wall Street Journal, TIME, and many others. Her weekly comic strip has been published in numerous alternative newsweeklies since 2002.

Emily is the author of several books, most recently Joke in a Box: How to Write and Draw Jokes. She created illustrations for the Broadway production All In, a comedy based on the short stories of fellow Thurber Prize winner Simon Rich.

Emily was nominated for a Writers Guild of America award for her work on Command Z, a web series directed by Steven Soderbergh. She is the founder and operator of St. Nell’s, a humor writing residency in Williamsport, PA. Emily received her BFA in Illustration from the Maryland College of Art.

In response to receiving the Thurber Prize, Emily said, “I am overwhelmed with joy and shock to have received this prize, and while I am still not entirely certain this is not an elaborate prank, I am endlessly grateful to the Thurber House for this incredible honor and will do my very best to live up to it."

 Paul Noth

2025 | 2nd Thurber Prize

Paul Noth’s cartoons have appeared regularly in The New Yorker since 2004. He has co-created animated shorts for Saturday Night Live and Late Night with Conan O’Brien and developed shows for Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, and Nickelodeon. He is the author and illustrator of the middle grade books How to Sell Your Family to the Aliens, How to Properly Dispose of Planet Earth, and How to Win the Science Fair When You’re Dead, all published by Bloomsbury. His work has been described as “unfinished.”

“I feel greatly honored and astonished to receive the Thurber Prize for American Humor in Cartoon Art. There’s no award I would rather win than the one bearing the name of James Thurber. My deepest thanks to the Thurber House and everyone who has helped my work get published, particularly David Remnick, Emma Allen, Bob Mankoff, Matt Diffee, and, most of all, Parnell Noth.” — Paul Noth

Roz Chast

2024 | 1st Thurber Prize

Roz Chast’s work has appeared in numerous magazines through the years, including The Village Voice, National Lampoon, Scientific American, Harvard Business Review, Redbook, and Mother Jones, but she is most closely associated with The New Yorker, where her cartoons have been published since 1978.

Chast attended the Rhode Island School of Design, where she studied painting. After graduating in 1977, she returned to New York City, where she quickly established her cartooning career. In addition to collections of her New Yorker cartoons, Chast has written and illustrated a range of books. Her 2014 memoir, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? won a National Book Critics Circle Award, was shortlisted for a National Book Award, and was a finalist for the 2015 Thurber Prize for American Humor. In 2024, Roz Chast was awarded a National Humanities Medal by President Joe Biden.