Tom Bissell

Tom Bissell (born January 9, 1974) is an American journalist, critic, and fiction writer, originally from Escanaba, Michigan, United States and currently based in Los Angeles, California.

He studied English at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. In 1996, when he was 22 years old, Bissell went to Uzbekistan as a volunteer for the Peace Corps. He was there for seven months before returning home. He worked as a book editor in New York City and edited, among other books, The Collected Stories of Richard Yates and Paula Fox's memoir Borrowed Finery. He is a frequent reviewer for The New York Times Book Review.

Bissell's father served in the Marines during the Vietnam War, alongside author and journalist Philip Caputo. The two remained friends during Bissell's childhood and Caputo read Bissell's work and encouraged him in his early writing efforts.

Bissell writes for Harper's Magazine, Slate, The New Republic, and The Virginia Quarterly Review, where he is a contributing editor. While much of Bissell's magazine writing could be considered travel writing, his articles are more concerned with politics, history, and autobiography than tourism.

As a journalist he traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan during wartime.

Bissell's literary work has been recognized and highlighted at Michigan State University in their Michigan Writers Series.

His book in collaboration with Jeff Alexander, Speak, Commentary, is a collection of fake DVD commentaries for popular films by political figures and pundits such as Noam Chomsky, Dinesh D'Souza and Ann Coulter.

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