Benjamin Nugent

I grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts, and now I have an apartment in Brooklyn but I spend more time in Los Angeles. When I was a nerdy child I would think, 'how come there's not a history of this name people shout at me when they throw things at me?' I started out as a reporter at Time, and I've written for The New York Times Magazine, Time, New York, and n+1, among other places. My favorite part of writing American Nerd was tracking down my friends from junior high and interviewing them about their lives and how they remembered our clique.