SCHEFT, Bill 1957-

PERSONAL: Born 1957.

ADDRESSES: Home—New York, NY. Agent—c/o Author Mail, HarperCollins, 10 East 53rd Street, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10022.

CAREER: David Letterman (television program), monologue writer; Sports Illustrated, columnist.

WRITINGS:

The Ringer: A Novel, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS: Bill Scheft has been a monologue writer for the David Letterman show for over ten years and is also a Sports Illustrated columnist. In his debut novel, The Ringer, Scheft combines his careers writing jokes and writing about sports into one book. In The Ringer, Harvey Sussman, better known by the nickname College Boy, is a thirty-five-year-old man who makes his living playing as a hired pitcher on thirteen different softball teams in New York City. He also earns money as an audience laugher for a radio program. College Boy has no ambition in life and doesn't know what he will do after his softball days are over. He leaves town after suffering an injury and being beaten up, and ends up as a nurse for his sickly Uncle Mort, a jokester and former sportswriter. While taking care of Mort, College Boy finds himself looking at life differently. New York Times contributor Joe Queenan commented, "The jokes are plentiful and very high in quality." "Scheft blends crackling banter, pithy prose, and empathy for his characters in a punchy Raymond Chandler-meets-Bruce Jay Friedman style," noted Josh Wolk in an Entertainment Weekly review.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Entertainment Weekly, July 26, 2002, Josh Wolk, review of The Ringer: A Novel, p. 64.

Publishers Weekly, May 20, 2002, review of The Ringer, pp. 44-45.

ONLINE

CNN Web site,http://www.cnn.com/ (September 6, 2002), Josh Wolk, "The Ringer a Comic Journey."

New York Times on the Web,http://www.nytimes.com/ (August 11, 2002), Joe Queenan, review of The Ringer.

Rocky Mountain News,http://www.rockymountainnews.com/ (September 6, 2002), review of The Ringer.*