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Michael Gerber (born June 14, 1969) is the author of the Barry Trotter series, million-selling parodies of the Harry Potter books. Before becoming a novelist, Gerber contributed humor to The New Yorker, Saturday Night Live, and many other venues.

In addition to the Barry Trotter parodies, Gerber is also responsible for The Lying Bitch in the Wardrobe and A Christmas Peril, spoofs of C.S. Lewis and Charles Dickens respectively.

He has written two non-parodic novels, Freshman and Sophomore, half of a four-book series which follows a student's progress through the mythical, Ivy/Oxbridge-inflected Stutts University. In writing these satirical romps, Gerber draws upon his experiences as a student at Yale University, specifically his activities on The Yale Record college humor magazine. Gerber currently runs The Record's alumni organization.

Gerber grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and Oak Park, Illinois. His first published work was a humor column for The Trapeze, the student newspaper of Oak Park and River Forest High School. Though many at the time questioned the quality of this material, it did allow him to meet his wife. Gerber has a slight case of cerebral palsy.

A devoted fan of The Beatles, he is currently working on a humorous mystery novel loosely based on the life and times of that group. In 2007, he co-founded Hey Dullblog, a well-respected group weblog on all things Beatle. "I only started writing comedy because The Beatles weren't hiring. Blame them."

Gerber lives in Santa Monica, California.

He is the brother of quantum physicist and professor Keith Schwab.

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