Tom Perrotta grew up in New Jersey, a voracious reader of authors such as O. Henry, J.R.R. Tolkien, and John Irving, and decided early in life to be a writer. After Yale, he went to the creative writing program at Syracuse, where he was a student of Tobias Wolff. Perrotta's first published work, the story collection Bad Haircuts (1994), received critical praise. The novels Election (1998) and Little Children (2004) were also much admired, and both were made into acclaimed films. Perrotta received an Academy Award nomination for best adapted screenplay for co-writing Little Children. His latest novel,The Leftovers, about the aftermath of a Rapture-like gleaning of souls, was published in August, 2011.
