Barry Yourgrau

"I can never remember my dreams, so Mr. Yourgrau's stories are a pretty good substitute" — David Byrne

Besides Mess, Barry Yourgrau is the author of much-admired books of surreal brief fiction, including Wearing Dad’s Head, The Sadness of Sex, in whose film version he starred. He's written a provocative book for kids (and adult kids) called Nastybook. Yourgrau and his work have appeared on MTV’s “Unplugged–Spoken Word” and NPR’s “All Things Considered,” “Selected Shorts,”and "Weekend Edition," among others. He won a Drama-Logue Award for “Wearing Dad’s Head: The Live Version” and was invited to Sundance Theater Lab to workshop Haunted Traveller. He’s written for the New York Times, Spin, Huffington Post, ParisReview Daily, Salon, Independent (U.K.), Artforum, and elsewhere.

Born in South Africa, Yourgrau lives in New York and Istanbul. He travels a lot with his girlfriend, a globe-trotting food writer.