Neil Strauss
[14] He was then invited by Jann Wenner to become a contributing editor at Rolling Stone where he wrote cover stories on Kurt Cobain, Madonna, Tom Cruise, Orlando Bloom, the Wu-Tang Clan, Gwen Stefani, Stephen Colbert, and Marilyn Manson.He won the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for his coverage of Kurt Cobain's death for Rolling Stone and his profile of Eric Clapton in The New York Times Arts & Leisure section.Strauss also contributed to Esquire, Maxim, Spin, Entertainment Weekly, Details, and The Source in addition to writing liner notes for albums by Nirvana and others.In addition to documenting his experiences with pickup artists like Mystery, Steve P, Rasputin (Hypnotica), Ross Jeffries, and numerous others, it also describes his interactions with celebrities including Britney Spears,[18] Tom Cruise, and Courtney Love.The book made a month-long appearance in The New York Times bestsellers list in September–October 2005, and reached the #1 position on Amazon.com immediately after its release in the United States.[21] After publishing the book, Strauss temporarily retired as a pickup artist and settled with a longtime girlfriend Lisa Leveridge, who played guitar in Courtney Love's band The Chelsea.[32][33] On March 4, 2009, The New York Times wrote that Strauss (along with rock biographer Anthony Bozza) had started his own publishing company, Igniter, as an imprint of HarperCollins.In June, 2017, I Can't Make This Up: Life Lessons was published with co-author Kevin Hart and immediately was a #1 NY Times Bestseller.[46] In January 2023, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, a book that Strauss wrote with music producer Rick Rubin, was released and entered the New York Times Bestseller list at No.