# Sam Lipsyte

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American novelist

Sam Lipsyte Lipsyte in 2014 Born 1968 (age 57–58) New York City, U.S. Occupation Professor Education Brown University (BA) Genre novelist, short story writer Notable awards New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Believer Book Award Relatives Robert Lipsyte (father)

**Sam Lipsyte** (born 1968) is an American [novelist](/source/Novelist) and [short story](/source/Short_story) writer.[1]

## Early life and education

The son of the sports journalist [Robert Lipsyte](/source/Robert_Lipsyte), Sam Lipsyte was born in [New York City](/source/New_York_City) and raised in [Closter, New Jersey](/source/Closter%2C_New_Jersey),[2] where he attended [Northern Valley Regional High School at Demarest](/source/Northern_Valley_Regional_High_School_at_Demarest).[3] He attended [Brown University](/source/Brown_University), receiving a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1990. At Brown, Lipsyte lived with [Steven Johnson.](/source/Steven_Johnson_(author))[4][5]

## Career

Lipsyte was an editor at the webzine *FEED.*[6] His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in *The Quarterly*, *[The New Yorker](/source/The_New_Yorker)*, *Harper's*, *Noon*, *Tin House*, *Open City*, [*n+1*](/source/N%2B1), *Slate*, *McSweeney's*, *Esquire*, *GQ*, *Bookforum*, *The New York Times Book Review*, *[The Washington Post](/source/The_Washington_Post)*, *[The Los Angeles Times](/source/The_Los_Angeles_Times)*, *[Nouvelle Revue Française](/source/Nouvelle_Revue_Fran%C3%A7aise)*, *[The Paris Review](/source/The_Paris_Review)*, *[This Land](http://thislandpress.com)*, and *Playboy*, among other places.

Lipsyte's work is characterized by its verbal acumen and black humor. His books have been translated into several languages, including French, Russian, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. His novel *The Ask* was published in the United States by [Farrar, Straus and Giroux](/source/Farrar%2C_Straus_and_Giroux) in 2010, and in the United Kingdom by Old Street Publishing. In May 2011, [HBO](/source/HBO) announced development of a comedy, "People City," based on Lipsyte's work, with Lipsyte serving as writer and executive producer.[7]

He lives in Manhattan and teaches fiction at [Columbia University](/source/Columbia_University).[8][9]

## Awards

His novel *Home Land* was a [New York Times Notable Book of the Year](/source/New_York_Times_Notable_Book_of_the_Year) for 2005 and winner of the inaugural 2004 [Believer Book Award](/source/Believer_Book_Award). *Venus Drive* was named one of the 25 Best Books of 2000 by *The Village Voice Literary Supplement*. In 2008, he received a [Guggenheim Fellowship](/source/Guggenheim_Fellowship).[10]

## Bibliography

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (July 2023)

### Books

- *Venus Drive*, Open City Books, 2000, [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-1-890447-25-0](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1-890447-25-0)

- *The Subject Steve*, Broadway Books, 2001, [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-7679-0885-6](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-7679-0885-6); reprint Random House, Inc., 2002, [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-7679-0917-4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-7679-0917-4)

- *Home Land*, Flamingo, 2004, [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-00-717036-4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-00-717036-4); Macmillan, 2005, [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-312-42418-3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-312-42418-3)

- *[The Ask](/source/The_Ask)*, Macmillan, 2010, [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-374-29891-3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-374-29891-3)

- *The Fun Parts*, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012, [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-374-29890-6](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-374-29890-6)

- *Hark*, Simon & Schuster, 2019, [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-1501146060](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1501146060)

- *Friend of the Pod*, Gagosian, 2022, [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-1-951449-40-7](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1-951449-40-7) (novella)

- *No One Left to Come Looking for You*, Simon & Schuster, 2022, [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-1501146121](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1501146121)

### Articles and other contributions

- ["April Fool's Day"](https://books.google.com/books?id=DCJuWOn98DUC&dq=Sam+Lipsyte&pg=PA85), *The revolution will be accessorized: BlackBook presents dispatches from the new counterculture*, Editor Aaron Hicklin, HarperCollins, 2006, [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-0-06-084732-6](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-0-06-084732-6)

- ["Dear Miss Primatologist Lady"](https://books.google.com/books?id=TWowAXtM4nUC&dq=Sam+Lipsyte&pg=RA1-PA167), *Four Letter Word: Invented Correspondence from the Edge of Modern Romance*, Editors Rosalind Porter, Joshua Knelman, Simon and Schuster, 2008, [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [978-1-4165-6973-2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1-4165-6973-2)

- Lipsyte, Sam (January 25, 2021). ["Waiting for to-go"](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/25/waiting-for-to-go). Shouts & Murmurs. *The New Yorker*. **96** (45): 26–27.

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** [*Venus Drive*, story by Sam Lipsyte](http://opencity.org/books/venus-drive), *[Open City (magazine)](/source/Open_City_(magazine))*. Accessed July 28, 2011.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** Staff. ["Corrections"](https://www.pw.org/content/letters_1), *[Poets & Writers](/source/Poets_%26_Writers)*, May/June 2010. Accessed July 28, 2011. "Sam Lipsyte's hometown is Closter, New Jersey, not Demarest, as stated in *Failure's Fortune* by [Frank Bures](/source/Frank_Bures) (March/April 2010)."

1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** Lauer, Evelyn. ["Around Town"](https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/495673269/), *[The Record](/source/The_Record_(North_Jersey))*, January 11, 1987. Accessed January 4, 2022, via [Newspapers.com](/source/Newspapers.com). "Those who took honors for poetry are: First prize Edward Zdanek, Dumont High School. Second prize Jeff Janisheski, Don Bosco High School, Ramsey, Sam Lipsyte, Northern Valley Regional High School, Demarest; and Halice Ruppi, Dwight Morrow High School, Englewood."

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** [Johnson, Steven](/source/Steven_Johnson_(author)) (2011-10-14). ["I Was an Under-Age Semiotician"](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/books/review/i-was-an-under-age-semiotician.html). *[The New York Times](/source/The_New_York_Times)*. [ISSN](/source/ISSN_(identifier)) [0362-4331](https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0362-4331). Retrieved 2022-02-22.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-5)** Kachka, Boris. ["Has the World Finally Caught Up With Post-Punk Author Sam Lipsyte?"](https://www.vulture.com/2013/03/sam-lipsyte-fun-parts.html). *Vulture*. Retrieved 2022-02-22.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-6)** ["Sam Lipsyte, on falling forward when there's no fallback - Work.Life - Liz Kofman & Astri von Arbin Ahlander - True/Slant"](https://web.archive.org/web/20110724080327/http://trueslant.com/lizandastri/2010/06/07/sam-lipsyte-on-falling-forward-when-theres-no-fallback/). Archived from [the original](http://trueslant.com/lizandastri/2010/06/07/sam-lipsyte-on-falling-forward-when-theres-no-fallback/) on 2011-07-24. Retrieved 2010-06-09.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-7)** Rose, lacey. ["HBO Developing Comedy From Author Sam Lipsyte (Exclusive)"](http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hbo-developing-comedy-author-sam-191187), *[The Hollywood Reporter](/source/The_Hollywood_Reporter)*, May 23, 2011. Accessed July 28, 2011.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-8)** [Sam Lipsyte: Assistant Professor and Associate Director of Undergraduate Creative Writing](http://www.columbia.edu/cu/writing/faculty/sam-lipsyte.html), [Columbia University](/source/Columbia_University). Accessed July 28, 2011.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-9)** Alpern, Emma (16 December 2022). ["Novelist Sam Lipsyte Cleaves His Peppers"](https://www.grubstreet.com/2022/12/sam-lipsyte-grub-street-diet.html). *Grub Street*. Retrieved 19 December 2022.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-award_10-0)** ["John Simon Guggenheim"](http://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/sam-lipsyte/). *www.gf.org*. Retrieved 12 May 2015.

## External links

- ["I Start From a Place of Outrage and Sadness": A conversation on humor in fiction with Elisa Albert, Steve Almond, Brock Clarke, Sam Lipsyte, Zachary Martin, John McNally, and Deb Olin Unferth in *Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts* (24.2)](https://web.archive.org/web/20160304095523/http://gulfcoastmag.org/journal/242-summer/fall-2012/i-start-from-a-place-of-outrage-and-sadness-a-conversation-with-elisa-albert,-steve-almond,-brock-clarke,-sam-lipsyte,-zachary-martin,-john-mcnally,-and-deb-olin-unferth/)

- ["The Dungeon Master" short fiction in The New Yorker](http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2010/10/04/101004fi_fiction_lipsyte)

- ["Underground No More: The Rumpus Interview with Sam Lipsyte"](http://therumpus.net/2010/03/underground-no-more-the-rumpus-im-qa-with-sam-lipsyte/)

- [Sam Lipsyte interviewed at Gigantic magazine](http://thegiganticmag.com/magazine/articleDetail.php?p=articleDetail&id=63)

- ["Face to Face with SAM LIPSYTE"](http://www.stopsmilingonline.com/story_detail.php?id=997), *Stop Smiling*, Alex Abramovich, February 1, 2007

- ["This 'Home Land' is Your Land: The Sam Lipsyte IMterview"](http://gawker.com/035807/this-home-land-is-your-land-the-sam-lipsyte-imterview), *Gawker*

- ["Tip #37: Get a Head of Steam for your Self-Esteem"](http://thislandpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Okie-Doke.pdf), *This Land*

- ["Get a Head of Steam for Your Self-Esteem" Video Adaptation](http://thislandpress.com/06/22/2011/get-a-head-of-steam-for-your-self-esteem/), *This Land*

- [a profile of Sam Lipsyte by Philip Connors](http://indigestmag.com/blog/?p=8032) in [InDigest Magazine](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=InDigest_Magazine&action=edit&redlink=1)

v t e Closter, New Jersey NRHP Houses William De Clark House Abram Demaree House Haring–Auryanson House Harold Hess Lustron House John Nagle House Henry Naugle House Isaac Naugle House Tallman–Vanderbeck House David and Cornelius Van Horn House Vervalen House Buildings Closter Public Schools Ericom Software People Abram Belskie Benjamin Blackledge George Dayton Emme Tom Gorman Bruce Harper Israel Horowitz Richard Hunt David-Seth Kirshner Robert Lipsyte Sam Lipsyte Tom Waddell

Authority control databases International ISNI VIAF GND WorldCat National United States France BnF data Italy Czech Republic Spain Netherlands Norway Israel Croatia People Trove Other IdRef SNAC Yale LUX

v t e Recipients of the Believer Book Award Sam Lipsyte (2004) Sesshu Foster (2005) Cormac McCarthy (2006) Tom McCarthy (2007) Emily Perkins (2008) Percival Everett (2009) James Hynes (2010) Ben Lerner (2011) Tamara Faith Berger (2012) Rebecca Lee (2013) Ottessa Moshfegh (2014)

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Sam Lipsyte](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Lipsyte) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Lipsyte?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.