David Rakoff

The wry and the heartfelt join in David Rakoff's prose to resurrect that most-neglected of literary virtues: wit. “Looking like a pug and sounding like the love child of Dorothy Parker, Oscar Wilde and ‘All About Eve's’ Addison DeWitt,”  (Atlanta Journal and Constitution), Rakoff's New York Times bestsellers, Fraud and Don’t Get Too Comfortable, have established him as one of today's funniest, most insightful writers. “Rakoff knows the incantatory power of a story well-told, the art of keeping words aloft like the bubbles in a champagne flute. He possesses the crackling wit of a '30s screwball comedy ingenue, a vocabulary that is a treasure chest of mots justes, impressive but most times not too showy for everyday wear” (Los Angeles Times).

A two-time recipient of the Lambda Book Award for Humor, David Rakoff is a regular contributor to Public Radio International's This American Life and The New York Times Magazine, a correspondent for Outside, and Writer-at-Large for GQ. His writing has also appeared in Vogue, Salon, Seed, Condé Nast Traveler, The New York Observer, and Wired, among others. He recently contributed the essay on Utah for the 2008 book State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America and is working on a new book entitled Half Empty.

David Rakoff has worked in theater with David and Amy Sedaris on their plays Stitches, The Little Freida Mysteries, The Book of Liz, and the Obie award-winning One Woman Shoe. He  has portrayed Lance Loud and poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, and can be seen in the films “Capote,” (fleetingly) and “Strangers With Candy” (fleetingly; mutely).  He adapted the screenplay and starred in the live-action short film The New Tenants, nominated for an Oscar in 2010.