Martha McPhee (born 1965) is an American novelist. She is the daughter of literary journalist John McPhee (born 1931) and his first wife, photographer Pryde Brown (born 1935). She is also the sister of novelist Jenny McPhee, photographer Laura McPhee, and architectural historian Sarah McPhee. Following Pryde Brown’s marriage to psychologist Dan Sullivan in 1969, the McPhee children grew up on a farm outside of Princeton, New Jersey, with their younger half-sister, Joan Sullivan, and their stepfather's children from his first marriage.
McPhee graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Bowdoin College in 1987 and received her Master of Fine Arts in Fiction from Columbia University in 1997. She received a National Endowment for the Arts grant to complete her first novel, Bright Angel Time (1997). Her second novel, Gorgeous Lies (2002), was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her other novels include L’America (2006), Dear Money (2010), and An Elegant Woman (2020). She has been a professor in the English Department at Hofstra University since 2002.
McPhee married poet and writer Mark Svenvold (born 1958) in 1996. The couple and their two children, Ana Livia Svenvold McPhee and Jasper Svenvold McPhee, live in New York City.
