Ariel Schrag was born in Berkeley, California. Her debut novel, ADAM, was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in June 2014.

She is the author of the graphic memoirs Awkward, Definition, Potential, and Likewise (Simon & Schuster), which chronicle her four years at Berkeley High School. Potential was nominated for an Eisner Award and Likewise was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award.

Potential is currently being developed into a feature film by Christine Vachon’s Killer Films (Carol, Boys Don’t Cry, Mildred Pierce). Schrag wrote the screenplay adaptation.

Schrag was a writer for Season Two of the HBO series How To Make It In America and a writer for Seasons Three and Four of the Showtime series The L Word.

She is the editor of Stuck in the Middle: 17 Comics from an Unpleasant Age (Viking) an anthology of comics about middle school. Stuck in the Middle was selected for New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age 2008.

Along with her friend Kevin Seccia, Schrag co-wrote the webcomic Ariel and Kevin Invade Everything! The comic recounts the adventures of two best friends and is found at invadeeverything.tumblr.com.

She has written comics and articles for  The New York Times Book Review, Cosmopolitan, The New York Observer, and more. Her original art has appeared in galleries across the United States, Europe, and Canada.

Schrag does live performances of her comics across the country and abroad. The show includes projected slides of comic panels with Schrag reading the voices and a musical soundtrack.

She is the subject of the short documentary film Confession: A Film About Ariel Schrag by director Sharon Barnes. Confession played on PBS and Channel 4 in England and won the Audience Award at New York New Festival.

Schrag graduated from Columbia University in 2003 with a degree in English Literature. Since 2004 she has taught the course Graphic Novel Workshop in the writing department at The New School. She has also taught classes at Brown University, New York University, Butler University, Williams College, and JW3 in London. Schrag was a 2012 Radar Lab and Yaddo fellow.

She lives in Brooklyn, New York.