Stephen Fishbach is a bestselling novelist and Pushcart Prize-winning short story writer.

His novel Escape! was an instant national bestseller and received praise in the Atlantic, Slate, Los Angeles Review of Books, People, and many others. The New Yorker’s Emily Nussbaum called it “a gorgeously written, compassionate, but ultimately devastating portrait of the lives of the human beings working inside (and often, crushed by) the entertainment machine.” It was also featured on Entertainment Weekly’s Must List.

Through Stephen’s corporate work, he has tried to use media superpowers for positive social change. At MTV and Logo TV, he worked on campaigns that used those channels’ broad reach to raise awareness about discrimination, marriage equality, and school violence. He was a writer for MTV’s Peabody Award-winning “Half of Us” campaign, which focused on young people’s mental health. He also has worked as a speechwriter, and once wrote nine speeches about world peace that Stevie Wonder delivered during a concert at the United Nations.

Stephen is host of the literary podcast Paraphrase and co-host of The Survivor Know-It-Alls with Rob Cesternino.

In 2008, he was runner-up on the TV show Survivor, and in 2015, he was voted by fans to return for an all star season of the show.

He lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and two children.