Richard Babcock

Until stepping down in 2011, Richard Babcock was the longtime editor in chief of Chicago magazine. Before that, he spent more than a decade as a top editor at New York magazine. He is the author of the best-selling Kindle Singles stories "My Wife's Story" and "Ah, Rat." Are You Happy Now? is Babcock's third novel, after Martha Calhoun (1988) and Bow's Boy (2002). Raised in Woodstock, Illinois, Babcock graduated from Dartmouth College and the University of Michigan Law School. He lives in Chicago with his wife, Gioia Diliberto, an acclaimed biographer and novelist. He has taught at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism, Knox College, and Loyola University of Chicago. In addition to writing and teaching, Babcock occupies himself in following the Chicago Cubs, a team he credits for a lifetime's schooling in the "nuances of failure and loss."