Jonathan Ames

Jonathan Ames (; born March 23, 1964) is an American author who has written a number of novels and comic memoirs, and is the creator of two television series, Bored to Death (HBO) and Blunt Talk (STARZ). In the late '90s and early 2000s, he was a columnist for the New York Press for several years, and became known for self-deprecating tales of his sexual misadventures. He also has a long-time interest in boxing, appearing occasionally in the ring as "The Herring Wonder". Two of his novels have been adapted into films: The Extra Man in 2010, and You Were Never Really Here in 2017. Ames was a co-screenwriter of the former and an executive producer of the latter. Early life Raised in Oakland, New Jersey, Ames is Jewish. He attended Indian Hills High School. Ames graduated with an English degree in 1987 from Princeton University, and where he authored his senior thesis entitled Eye Pity Eye: (The Collected Writings of Alexander Vine). He also holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in fiction from Columbia University. He has been an infrequent faculty member at Columbia, The New School, and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Print Ames's novels include I Pass Like Night (1989), The Extra Man (1998), and 2004's Wake Up Sir!, described by The New York Times as "laugh-out-loud funny". In September 2008, Ames released The Alcoholic, his first foray into graphic literature, illustrated by Dean Haspiel; an excerpt was included in The Best American Comics 2010. In 2009, he published a new collection of essays and fiction with Scribner, titled The Double Life Is Twice as Good. In 2018, Vintage released an expanded version of Ames's first thriller novel, You Were Never Really Here, which was originally published at Byliner as an e-book in 2013.