NATE DERN is a writer and actor living in Los Angeles with his wife and their cat, Renly Baratheon. He grew up in the mountains of Evergreen, Colorado, where he ran around on dirt trails and read Kurt Vonnegut. In high school he was student body president and helped organize some pretty solid 'Wayne's World' parody skits at a school assembly or two. He went to college at Harvard, where he did improv with the Immediate Gratification Players and graduated magna cum laude with a degree in social anthropology and the study of religion. Nate got an MPhil from Cambridge in screen media and is in a sociology PhD program at Columbia that he is hoping to finish one of these years. After serving as the Artistic Director of the UCB Theatre for several years, Nate began working at Funny or Die as a senior writer where he continues to produce #content. He appeared in the Paolo Sorrentino film 'Youth' and in the TV shows 'Boardwalk Empire' and 'Gossip Girl.' His writing has been published by The New Yorker, McSweeney's, Outside, Vice, New York Magazine, and others. "Not Quite a Genius" is his first book.