Writer and broadcaster Ian Frazier was born in Ohio and educated at Harvard University, where he wrote for the Harvard Lampoon. After his graduation he joined The New Yorker staff and frequently contributes to The Atlantic Monthly. His writing collections Dating Your Mom and Coyote V. Acme earned him a Thurber Prize for American Humor. The Great Plains won a 1990 Spur Award for Nonfiction from the Western Writers of America. Frazier has appeared on the National Public Radio Program A Prairie Home Companion and has acted in Smoke and Blue in the Face, both of which are Wayne Wang and Paul Auster films.