Lev Grossman

Lev Grossman grew up in Lexington, MA, the son of two English professors, so naturally he read a lot. He read a lot in college at Harvard too (graduating with a degree in Literature), and read even more at Yale in a graduate program for Comparative Literature - then moved to New York City and started writing full time. He published his first novel, Warp, in 1997. In response to receiving largely negative customer reviews for this novel, he submitted fake reviews to Amazon using false names - and then recounted these actions for Salon in an essay entitled Terrors of the Amazon. His second novel Codex and the three novels in The Magicians Trilogy have all been bestsellers, and the trilogy has been published in 23 countries. The Magicians won the 2010 Alex Award, given to ten adult books which are appealing to young adults. In 2011 Grossman received the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. In an article for the New York Times, Grossman wrote: "I wrote fiction for 17 years before I found out I was a fantasy novelist. Up till then I always thought I was going to write literary fiction, like Jonathan Franzen or Zadie Smith or Jhumpa Lahiri. But I thought wrong... Fantasy is sometimes dismissed as childish, or escapist, but I take what I am doing very, very seriously." Grossman has been a senior writer and the book critic at Time Magazine since 2002, and was described by the New York Times as "among this country's smartest and most reliable critics." His work has also appeared in The Believer, the Village Voice, the Wall Street Journal, Salon, Wired, Entertainment Weekly, Lingua Franca and many other venues. He has won several awards for journalism, including a Deadline Club Award for Arts Reporting in 2006. He makes regular appearances on campuses, including Harvard, Yale and Oxford, and as a commentator on NPR. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, two daughters and one son, in a creaky old house. Lev Grossman - Official Website Lev Grossman - Twitter Lev Grossman - Facebook