Stephen Chbosky

Stephen Chbosky
Chbosky on the Jericho panel at Comic Con San Diego, 2006
Born	(1970-01-25) January 25, 1970 (age 46) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
Occupation	Novelist, screenwriter, film director

Stephen Chbosky (/ʃəˈbɒski/; born January 25, 1970) is an American novelist, screenwriter, and film director best known for writing The New York Times bestselling coming-of-age novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999), as well as for screenwriting and directing the film version of the same book, starring Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, and Ezra Miller. He also wrote the screenplay for the 2005 film Rent, and was co-creator, executive producer, and writer of the CBS television series Jericho, which began airing in 2006.

Chbosky was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and raised in the Pittsburgh suburb of Upper St. Clair, Pennsylvania. He is the son of Lea (née Meyer), a tax preparer, and Fred G. Chbosky, a steel company executive and consultant to CFOs. Chbosky has a sister, Stacy, who is married to director John Erick Dowdle. He was raised Catholic. As a teenager, Chbosky "enjoyed a good blend of the classics, horror, and fantasy." He was heavily influenced by J. D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye and the writing of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Tennessee Williams. Chbosky graduated from Upper St. Clair High School in 1988, around which time he met Stewart Stern, screenwriter of the 1955 James Dean film Rebel Without a Cause. Stern became Chbosky's "good friend and mentor", and proved a major influence on Chbosky's career.