David Sedaris (BFA 1987) is one of America’s leading humor writers whose mordant wit and sharp social critiques are evident in bestsellers such as Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and When You Are Engulfed in Flames. Sedaris, who was born in 1956 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, studied sculpture at SAIC and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1987.

Sedaris’s career on radio began when he met radio host Ira Glass in Chicago and appeared on Glass’s weekly local program The Wild Room. This appearance led to his debut on National Public Radio when he read his essay “SantaLand Diaries” on air in 1992. He has published several novels and essay collections, including Me Talk Pretty One Day, which won Sedaris the Thurber Prize for American Humor in 2001. A regular contributor to the New Yorker, Sedaris has published more than 40 essays in the magazine. Sedaris’s books have been translated into 29 languages and there are more than 10 million copies of his books in print.