Cep is a staff writer at The New Yorker,[1] and her work has appeared in The New York Times,[2] The Paris Review,[3] The New Republic,[4] and other publications.
Cep's debut non-fiction book, published by Knopf, Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee (2019), tells the story of how Harper Lee worked on, but ultimately failed to publish, an account of a murder trial that happened in Alabama in 1977.
Willie Maxwell – an African American preacher and businessman, five of whose relatives died during the span of seven years, all after he procured life insurance policies for them.
"[19] According to NPR's Ilana Masad, "Furious Hours delivers a gripping, incredibly well-written portrait of not only Harper Lee, but also of mid-20th century Alabama – and a still-unanswered set of crimes to rival the serial killers made infamous in the same time period.
[21] Cep was born and raised on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where she now lives with her wife, fellow New Yorker staff writer Kathryn Schulz, and their baby daughter.
I was steeped in scripture as a kid, and I’ve devoted quite a lot of my adult life to studying religion and theology, so I find it is one of the great themes that interests me — not only as a writer, but as a person in the world, trying to figure out how to be a good partner and community member and citizen of the cosmos.