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Amanda Stern (born and raised in Greenwich Village, New York City) is the author of the critically acclaimed novel The Long Haul and founder, curator and host of the well-respected and popular The Happy Ending Music and Reading Series, for which she is best known. A permanent resident of New York City, Stern makes her living writing young adult novels under a pseudonym, as a publicity consultant to authors, a freelance writer and as an impresario for literary institutions such as The National Book Foundation, for whom she hosted the National Book Award's first ever "5 Under 35" ceremony, and The PEN American Center. Her fiction, non-fiction, and poetry has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Filmmaker, Swink, Venus Magazine, The Believer, St. Ann's Review, Salt Hill, Hayden's Ferry Review, Fivechapters.com, Joyland.ca and Spinning Jenny.

Stern launched her series, "Happy Ending," in 2003 out of a Chinatown bar of the same name. Voted the best series by The Village Voice, New York Magazine, NY Press and The New Yorker, Stern's reputation as a skilled host and discerning curator began to grow, and in 2006, The New York Times Magazine profiled her as one of ten "New Bohemians," helping to "keep downtown, NY alive." She was later featured in Page Six as one of the literary scene's rising superstars in NYC. The Happy Ending Series quickly became the go-to destination for authors with a book to promote and for singer-songwriters singing to be heard. After five years in the small Chinatown bar, the well-loved series was presented with an offer it could not refuse: a permanent stage in NYC's premiere performance venue, Joe's Pub at the Public Theater. The series moved there on January 7, 2009 to become the pub's first ever ongoing literary series. She has welcomed Laurie Anderson, James Salter, Moby, A.M. Homes, Rick Moody, Amy Hempel, Mary Gaitskill, My Brightest Diamond and John Lurie among many others.

As a child, Stern acted and wrote plays with a professional theater company. When she was a senior in high school, one of those plays was produced off-Broadway at the now defunct Kaufmann Theater. She was one of the lead performers. From there she turned to film and during her freshman year at college began an apprenticeship with the now defunct independent film company, Good Machine. There she assisted the producers, Ted Hope and James Schamus and worked on the films of Hal Hartley and Ang Lee. Later she worked for Terry Gilliam on Twelve Monkeys. In the early 90s she began working at Broadway Video landing a job as a writer and researcher for Lorne Michaels' produced comedy series, "This is Not a Test." She rose from behind the scenes to become the onstage co-host alongside host, Marc Maron at Catch a Rising Star. They welcomed such guests as the late Phil Hartmann, Conan O Brien, Jon Stewart, Janeane Garofalo, Todd Barry, H. Jon Benjamin and the Upright Citizens Brigade. The show was the first to be streamed live on MSN. At the same time Stern founded, wrote and hosted a popular online radio show at the Pseudo Online Network called, The Cindy Something Show. Stern was then cast as an on-air host of the Lorne Michaels' owned network, Burly Bear. Stern stayed a little over one year before leaving comedy all together in order to dedicate herself full time to fiction.

She wrote her debut novel, The Long Haul, in nine months, while cleaning the toilets at her brother's yoga school, and sold it a year later while on tour with the Cirque du Soleil in Europe. Her novel came out in 2003 and was met with critical success. Stern launched the Happy Ending Music and Reading Series the month her novel came out. In an amusing turn of events, Stern, at 33, decided to learn how to drive in order to go on a book tour. With a couple weeks to go before driving across country, Stern failed her road test, twice, and decided, as a prank, to hold a contest for a tour driver. Publishers' Weekly picked up the story and 45 people applied to drive her across country. The winner, Jenn McKee, won and drove Stern across America to promote her novel.

On day 4 they got into an accident and totaled the car.

Her debut novel, The Long Haul, released by Soft Skull Press can be found in bookstores nationwide. She is at work on her next novel and a series of Children's books. She blogs about her series and culture at her blog, Lessons in Culture. Lessons in Curating. and maintains a website at [1] Stern has held several residencies at Yaddo and MacDowell. She currently lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn which is also home to the novelists Colson Whitehead, Jennifer Egan and Jhumpa Lahiri.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Amanda Stern", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0