Stephen Fried is an award-win­ning jour­nal­ist and New York Times best­selling author who teach­es at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty Grad­u­ate School of Jour­nal­ism and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia. He is the author of Appetite for Amer­i­ca, and the coau­thor, with Con­gress­man Patrick Kennedy, of A Com­mon Strug­gle. His ear­li­er books include Thing of Beau­ty: The Tragedy of Super­mod­el Gia, Bit­ter Pills, and The New Rab­bi. A two-time win­ner of the Nation­al Mag­a­zine Award, Fried has writ­ten fre­quent­ly for Van­i­ty Fair, GQ, The Wash­ing­ton Post Mag­a­zine, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. He lives in Philadel­phia with his wife, author Diane Ayres.