Authors

Alan Zweibel is an original Saturday Night Live writer and winner of multiple Emmy and Writers Guild of America awards for his work in television. He also collaborated with Billy Crystal on the Tony Award-winning Broadway play 700 Sundays and won the Thurber Prize for American Humor for his novel The Other Shulman. Zweibel started his comedy career selling jokes to the last of the Borscht Belt stand-ups for $7 apiece. Lorne Michaels heard him one night which led to Zweibel becoming one of SNL’s first writers, where he wrote classic material for Gilda Radner, John Belushi, and all of the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players. Zweibel went on to have a hand in several landmark shows, from It’s Garry Shandling’s Show to Curb Your Enthusiasm. In Laugh Lines: My Life Helping Funny People Be Funnier (Abrams Press), Zweibel goes deep into the origins of famous SNL sketches and how the show evolved in the wake of meteoric success. It’s a warmhearted cultural memoir, including notes on his friendships with Shandling, Crystal, Larry David, and the voices of other comedians and writers, such as Dave Barry, Richard Lewis, Eric Idle, Judd Apatow, and Carl Reiner.