RICHARD RUSHFIELD

OFTEN CALLED ONE OF THE OLDEST MEMBERS OF HIS GENERATION, Richard Rushfield is a man of many hats: journalist, novelist, former-political hack, cultural futurist, seer. Considered a prophet on his good days by several of his friends, he wears the mantle of history with unparalleled grace.

Born in Washington D.C. and raised in Los Angeles, California, Richard attended high school at the not-yet-fabulous Crossroads School in Santa Monica, California. He received a BA in Art History from Hampshire College, in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1991.

Richard’s first career was as a political field organizer. From 1988 – 1994 he worked at the grassroots level for candidates including Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, LA City Councilman Mike Woo, Congressman Dan Hamburg and Boston Sheriff Bob Rufo.

After leaving politics, Richard began a career as a freelance journalist. He has written on subject ranging from teenage witches to politics for publications including Slate, New York Times, Variety, V-Life, Details, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Black Book, CMJ and Elle Décor. From 2000 to 2002, he wrote a column on film for Arena Magazine. Since 1996, Richard and his partner Adam Leff have co-authored Vanity Fair’s recurring infotainment feature, “The Intelligence Report.”

In 1998, Richard and Adam Leff founded the cultural futurist agency, Monkey Zero, which studies the progress of worldwide cultural phenomenon.

In 2000, Richard authored his first novel, On Spec, which was published by St. Martin’s Press.

In 2002, Richard worked for one season as a Supervising Producer of the reality dating show “Blind Date.”

In 2003, Richard and Stacey Grenrock Woods founded the LA Innuendo, a quarterly satirical review of LA culture, which they jointly edit. From 2005 – 2009, he  served as Entertainment Editor of latimes.com and contributed numerous pieces to the paper. His groundbreaking series of articles on the lonelygirl15 mystery is widely credited as providing breakthrough which led to the final revalations of the truth behind that videos.

He is currently West Coast Editor of Gakwer

His next book, “Don’t Follow Me, I’m Lost: A memoir of the Twlight of the 80’s” is due out in November 2009 from Gotham Books.

Richard currently lives in Venice, CA with his wife, Nicole Laporte, a distinguished journalist in her own right.