Mignon Fogarty (born 1967) is a former science writer who produces an educational podcast Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing, which promotes the proper use of the English language and was named one of the best podcasts of 2007 by iTunes. She is married to Patrick Fogarty.
Fogarty graduated with a B.A. in English from the University of Washington in Seattle and an M.S. in biology from Stanford University.
Her career has focused on science and writing. She has been the editor-in-chief and producer for the LongerLiving website before becoming the editorial director of CaregiverZone. Later, she became the editorial director and executive producer of GeneticHealth.com.She was the producer and co-host of the podcast Absolute Science.
In January 2007, CNN featured Fogarty and her podcast calling her a "a quick and dirty success."
Mignon Fogarty appeared on the March 26, 2007 episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show as a grammar expert. She was on the show to answer a viewer question about the use of possessive apostrophes. The viewer thought a previous show should have been titled "Oprah's and Gayle's Big Adventure," but Fogarty confirmed that "Oprah and Gayle's Big Adventure" was a correct use of compound possession. She went on to discuss several other common grammar errors, including "Affect vs. Effect" and "Who vs. Whom."
In September 2007, Fogarty and Holt/Holtzbrinck agreed to produce books coordinated with the podcasts. The first audiobook to come from the Holt agreement, Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips to Clean Up Your Writing, was named one of the top five audiobooks of 2007 by iTunes.
In July 2008, Holt released Fogarty's first paperback book, Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing. In August 2008, the book was named number nine on the New York Times Best Seller List . In March 2009, the audiobook version was nominated for a 2009 Audie Award , and in July 2009, "O, The Oprah Magazine" listed the audiobook as one of its "must-hear audiobooks."
Her second book, The Grammar Devotional, was published by Holt in October of 2009 .
In August 2009, Spark, a radio program on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, announced that Fogarty would be joining their team for a special series .
On his Discovery Science Channel series It's All Geek to Me, New York Times technology writer David Pogue dressed up as Fogarty...hair, glasses, and all...and lip-synched one of her actual podcasts as part of a "visual demonstration" of what podcasts were in that program's episode about the iPod. He also gave the same treatment to Grammar Girl's fellow Quick and Dirty Tips podcaster Legal Lad.