Lawrence Grobel

Lawrence Grobel is a freelance writer who has written 31 books and for numerous national magazines and newspapers, including the New York Times, Newsday, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Reader's Digest, American Way, Parade, Details, TV Guide, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, Penthouse, Diversion, Writer's Digest, and AARP. He has been a contributing editor at Playboy, Movieline, Hollywood Life, Autograph, New Zealand's World, Bulgaria's Ego, and Poland's Trendy magazines. Playboy called him "the Interviewer's Interviewer" after his interview with Marlon Brando for their 25th anniversary issue; he subsequently made news as the result of his controversial interviews with MN.Gov. Jesse Ventura and former Indiana basketball coach Bob Knight. Between 1968-71 he taught in the Peace Corps at the Ghana Institute of Journalism in West Africa. He created the MFA in Professional Writing program for Antioch University in 1977 and served as its Director for three years. In 1981 he received a National Endowment for the Arts grant for fiction. His 1985 book Conversations with Capote received a PEN Special Achievement award and reached the top of several bestseller lists. Grobel's books include: Conversations with Capote; The Hustons; Conversations with Brando; Talking with Michener; Above the Line: Conversations About the Movies; Endangered Species: Writers Talk About Their Craft, Their Visions, Their Lives; Climbing Higher with Montel Williams (a N.Y. Times bestseller and Publisher's Weekly Best Book in 2004); The Art of the Interview: Lessons from a Master of the Craft (also a Publisher's Weekly Best Book in 2004); You, Talking to Me (120 Lessons Learned from Interviewing); Al Pacino: In Conversation with Lawrence Grobel (awarded the Prix Litteraire from the Syndicate Francfais de la Critique de Cinema for Best International Book of 2009); Conversations with Robert Evans; Conversations with Ava Gardner; Yoga? No, Shmoga! (a yoga satire); Icons (a collection of celebrity profiles); I Want You in My Movie! (Al Pacino's 5 Year Obsession with Wilde Salome); a memoir, You Show Me Yours; Madonna Paints a Mustache, a book of celebrity poems; the novels Catch a Fallen Star and Begin Again Finnegan; 2 novellas: Commando Ex, and The Black Eyes of Akbah; 3 books of short stories: The Narcissist; Schemers, Dreamers, Cheaters, Believers and STUCK; and TURQUOISE, a Peace Corps memoir. Joyce Carol Oates has called him "the Mozart of Interviewers" and J.P. Donleavy has called him "The most intelligent interviewer in the United States." From 2001--2011 he taught seminars on The Art of the Interview, The Literature of Journalism, Articles to Film, and Autobiography & the Memoir at UCLA and returned to teach at UCLA in 2017 & 2020. In 2012 he appeared as himself in Al Pacino's film Wilde Salome and in Shane Salerno's film about J.D. Salinger. He is married to artist and textile designer Hiromi Oda and they have two daughters, Maya and Hana. His blog, books and articles can be found on his website: www.lawrencegrobel.com.