Stephen Fried is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author who teaches at Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author six non-fiction books, including his recent biography of Dr. Benjamin Rush, founding father of American mental health care, as well as Thing of Beauty: The Tragedy of Supermodel Gia, Bitter Pills: Inside the Hazardous World of Legal Drugs, Appetite for America, and The New Rabbi; he is also co-author, with former Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy, of the recent Profiles in Mental Health Courage and A Common Struggle. Fried lectures widely on the subjects of his writing—especially his in-depth narratives on mental illness, substance use disorder and suicide. After years of teaching investigative reporting and longform nonfiction writing at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, he is currently director of the Narrative Medicine Journalism Workshop at Columbia’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. A two-time winner of the National Magazine Award, Fried has written for Vanity Fair, GQ, Glamour, and Philadelphia Magazine, where he also served as editor-in-chief. Fried lives in Philadelphia with his wife, author Diane Ayres.