About the Authors

Lev Grossman
Lev Grossman is a staff writer in TIME's arts and media section and TIME's book critic. He has profiled authors Philip Roth, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, John le Carre, Martin Amis, Jonathan Safran Foer, Alice Sebold, and JK Rowling, among many others. The New York Times has called Grossman one of "this country's smartest and most reliable critics."

Grossman also covers technology for TIME and is TIME's video game reviewer. He has written several cover stories on technology, including a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Microsoft's Xbox 360, and an in-depth story on Steve Jobs and the iPod. In 2003 he won the PRSA's Technology Journalism award for a story on file-sharing and its effect on the entertainment industry.

Grossman has also profiled numerous actors, including Tobey Maguire, Jack Nicholson and Keanu Reeves, and he spent 9 months as Time's People page writer. His cover story on the Twixters, the new generation of 20-somethings, was one of Time's most talked-about covers in 2005.

Before he came to Time Grossman earned an undergraduate degree in literature from Harvard, and an M.Phil. in comparative literature from Yale. He joined TIME Inc. as a producer for TIME.com, where he helped run the groundbreaking technology news site The Netly News. Later he became a senior editor at On, Time Inc.'s technology magazine. His writing on books, technology and culture has appeared in The Village Voice, Lingua Franca, the New York Times, Time Out NY, Entertainment Weekly, Us Weekly and Salon, among others. Grossman is a member of the board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle, and he makes frequent appearances on TV and radio, including ABC's Live with Regis and Kelly, Good Morning America, the Today Show, the View, Fox & Friends, Access Hollywood, CNN, and MSNBC, as well as the Mitch Albom show and NPR's All Things Considered.

Grossman's novel Codex (Harcourt, 2004), a literary thriller, was an international bestseller.

Matt Selman
Writer/producer Matt Selman has worked on eleven seasons and over two hundred episodes of The Simpsons. He currently serves as an Executive Producer.

The Simpsons episodes Selman has written or co-written include Natural Born Kissers, Simpsons Bible Stories, They Saved Lisa's Brain (guest starring Dr. Stephen Hawking), Eight Misbehavin', Behind the Laughter, Lisa the Treehugger, Trilogy of Error, Simpsons Tall Tales, Jaws Wired Shut, The Dad Who Knew Too Little, All's Fair In Oven War, Pranksta Rap, Future Drama, Girls Just Want To Have Sums, The Haw-Hawed Couple and Husbands and Knives. He was also one of the writers on The Simpsons Movie and the head writer for The Simpsons Game. He has won four Emmys and a Writer's Guild of America Award.

Selman grew up in Watertown, Massachusetts, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1993. He wrote on Seinfeld before starting at The Simpsons in 1997. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two daughters.