In her blog
bitches gotta eat, Irby offers an unvarnished and humorous accounting of challenges she has faced in her personal life and discusses various topics, including her sex life and battles with
Crohn's disease. She began the blog in 2009. Irby also co-hosted the live lit show
Guts and Glory in Chicago with Keith Ecker until 2015, when the show ended its run. She has co-hosted
The Sunday Night Sex Show, performed in several shows, including The Paper Machete and Story Club, and her work has appeared in
The Rumpus,
In Our Words, and
Jezebel. Irby has published five books:
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life;
Meaty;
New Year, Same Trash;
Wow, No Thank You; and
Quietly Hostile. Meaty was published by Curbside Splendor Publishing in 2013, then republished in 2018 by
Vintage Books. It is in development for adaptation as a television show on FX called
Guts and Glory, with comedian
Abbi Jacobson and writer
Jessi Klein. In 2017, Irby's second book,
We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, was published by Vintage Books. It made
The New York Times best-seller list for paperback nonfiction. The fourth collection of essays,
Wow, No Thank You, was released in March 2020. Irby stated on her social media pages that her book tour would be online due to
COVID-19. The book debuted in the New York Times best-seller list's number one spot for Paperback Nonfiction. In 2018, Irby wrote the fourth episode, "Pool", of the first season of
Shrill. It was released on March 15, 2019. In February 2021, Irby was announced as a co-producer and writer on
And Just Like That..., the HBO reboot of
Sex and the City. She was the lead writer of Season 1 Episode 5, "Tragically Hip." Her essay collection
Wow, No Thank You. won the
Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Non-Fiction at the
33rd Lambda Literary Awards in 2021. In July 2021, Irby wrote an episode for the second season of
Tuca & Bertie, "Vibe Check". ==Personal life==