Bill Scheft

{{short description|American novelist}} {{Infobox writer | embed = | honorific_prefix = | name = Bill Scheft | honorific_suffix = | image = Bill Scheft.jpg | image_size = | image_upright = | alt = | caption = Scheft at the 2009 New York Television Festival alongside Tom Ruprecht and Matt Roberts (a writer and the head writer of The David Letterman Show, both are cropped out of the photo | native_name = | native_name_lang = | pseudonym = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{bda|1957|2|15}} | birth_place = Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = | resting_place = | occupation = | language = English | education = | alma_mater = | period = | genre = {{hlist|Comedy|fiction}} | subject = | movement = | notable_works = | spouse = | partner = | children = | relatives = | awards = | signature = | signature_alt = | years_active = | module = | website = | portaldisp = }}

'''Bill Scheft''' (born February 15, 1957 in Boston) is an American comedy writer and novelist. He is best known<ref>{{cite news|last=Allan|first=Marc|title=Bill Scheft: Keeping Letterman (and us) laughing |url=http://www.nuvo.net/indianapolis/bill-scheft-keeping-letterman-and-us-laughing/Content?oid=1273434|accessdate=27 December 2010|newspaper=Nuvo|date=August 19, 2009}}</ref> for being a staff writer for David Letterman<ref>{{cite news|last=Ward|first=Kate|title=Letterman writer claimed host knew about Joaquin Phoenix hoax|url=http://news-briefs.ew.com/2010/09/18/letterman-writer-joaquin-im-still-here/|accessdate=27 December 2010|newspaper=ew.com|date=Sep 18, 2010}}</ref> from 1991 to 2015. During that time he was nominated for 15 Emmy Awards. He ran a weekly humor column, "The Show", in ''Sports Illustrated'' from 2002 to 2005. A collection of his columns, ''[https://www.amazon.com/Best-Show-Classic-Collection-Wisdom/dp/0446695610 The Best of "The Show"],'' was published by Warner Books in 2005.

Scheft is the author of five novels: ''The Ringer'' (2002), ''Time Won't Let Me'' (2005), ''Everything Hurts'' (2009), ''Shrink Thyself'' (2014), and ''Tommy Dash: Was It Everything I Said?'' (2022). ''Time Won't Let Me'' was a finalist for the 2006 Thurber Prize for American Humor. Both ''The Ringer'' and ''Everything Hurts'' are optioned for film.

Scheft has contributed humor essays to ''The New Yorker'', ''Salon,'' and ''Air Mail''. He is the nephew of the late Herbert Warren Wind, the legendary golf and profile writer for ''The New Yorker'' and ''Sports Illustrated''. In 2011, Scheft co-edited and wrote a foreword for the collection, ''America's Gift to Golf: Herbert Warren Wind on The Masters.'' He graduated from Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1979 with honors. He was married to comedian Adrianne Tolsch for 26 years before her death on December 7, 2016.

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== *{{official|http://www.billscheft.com/}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scheft, Bill}} Category:1957 births Category:21st-century American novelists Category:American comedy writers Category:American humor columnists Category:Jewish American columnists Category:Jewish American essayists Category:20th-century American Jews Category:American male novelists Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Living people Category:Novelists from Boston Category:21st-century American male writers Category:21st-century American Jews