David Rakoff

writer

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*, *Cond 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*. He is the author of three collections of essays, *Don't Get Too Comfortable*, *Fraud*, and his newest *Half Empty*, in which he examines the realities of our sunny, gosh-everyone-can-be-a-star contemporary culture and finds that, in most cases, the best in not yet to come, adversity will triumph, justice will not be served, and your dreams won't come true. As Kirkus Reviews notes, "Rakoff manages to make pessimism sexy, whittling optimism into little more than an irresponsible fad, a modern opiate of the masses." Rakoff adapted the screenplay and starred in the live-action short film *The New Tenants*, which won the 2010 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. He 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).