A former subway graffiti artist, stand-up comic, television writer, ghost writer, and corporate poet, Larry Strauss writes the kind of fiction he likes to read: funny, surprising, insightful, and poignant. He teaches high school English and coaches basketball in South Central Los Angeles, and tries to recruit kids out of materialism, violence and despair and into the world of ideas. Strauss grew up on the Upper Westside of Manhattan, then attended high school and college in Los Angeles. He wrote for television in his twenties, including three episodes of the first season of Transformers, then ghost-wrote and co-authored books with a doctor, nutritionist, financial planner, and two psychologists. He also wrote The Magic Man, a biography of Magic Johnson for the mid-grade audience. His first three novels, Fake Out, One Man One Vote, and Unfinished Business were published by Holloway House Books, now a subsidiary of Kennsington. His fourth novel, Now's the Time, is due out in March 2010 from Kearney Street Books. Strauss lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Eleanor, and their son.