Author Bio
• Aka—Lemony Snicket
• Birth—February 28, 1970
• Where—San Francisco, California, USA
• Education—B.A., Wesleyan University
• Awards—Michael L. Printz Honor Award
• Currently— lives in San Francisco, California
Daniel Handler is an American writer, best known for his work under the pen name Lemony Snicket, although he also writes under his real name.
Personal life
Handler was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Sandra Handler Day (nee Walpole), an opera singer and retired City College of San Francisco Dean (also distantly related the British writer Hugh Walpole). Daniel's father, Louis Handler, was a Jewish refugee from Germany, who worked as an accountant. Daniel has a younger sister, Rebecca.
Handler attended Commodore Sloat Elementary, Herbert Hoover Middle School and Lowell High School, and is an alumnus of the San Francisco Boys Chorus.
He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1992 and married Lisa Brown, a graphic artist, whom he met in college. They have a son Otto and live in an old Victorian house in San Francisco.
Handler is politically active and helped form LitPAC. In the June 10, 2007 edition of The New York Times Magazine, Handler reveals ambivalence toward his wealth, and the expectations it creates. He has supported the Occupy Wall Street movement.
He also describes himself as a secular humanist, claiming he is "not a believer in predetermined fates...[nor] a believer in karma.
The reason why I try to be a good person is because I think it's the right thing to do. If I commit fewer bad acts there will be fewer bad acts, maybe other people will join in committing fewer bad acts, and in time there will be fewer and fewer of them.
Books
Four of Handler's major works have been published under his own name. The first, The Basic Eight, was, according to Handler, rejected by 37 publishers, who felt the tone was too dark for its subject, the life of a teenage girl. It was finally published in 1998 by St. Martin's Press.
Watch Your Mouth, his second novel, came out in 2002. The narrative uses an operatic structure, complete with stage directions and separate acts. Described by HarperCollins as an "incest opera," it mixes Jewish mythology with modern sexuality. In the second half of the book, however, the opera trope gives way to a 12-step-recovery format, linguistically undergone by the protagonist.
2006, saw the release of Adverbs, Handler's short story collection, which he says is "about love." A third novel Why We Broke Up, released in 2011, received a 2012 Michael L. Printz honor award. His fourth novel We Are Pirates was published in 2015.
Handler also served as a judge for the PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship in 2012.
Lemony Snicket
Starting in 1999, Handler published A Series of Unfortunate Events under the Snicket pseudonym, finishing the series seven years later with a total of 13 books. The books, which became international bestsellers, revolve around three orphaned children who experience progressively terrible events after the alleged death of their parents. Snicket poses as narrator and biographer of the fictional orphans.
Handler (as Snicket) read for three consecutive audiobooks in the series, before handing the job back to Tim Curry, the original reader. He said he found it too difficult.
He has also shown up at author appearances as "Lemony Snicket's handler,"and he has appeared as Snicket in other books and media, including the commentary track for the film version of his books. Using his real name, he wrote an introduction to Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography.
HarperCollins published a short interview on its website posing questions regarding Lemony Snicket's "personal life." When asked about some of his hobbies, Snicket answered, "Taxidermy and playing the harpsichord."
The thirteenth (and final) book of the series was released on Friday, October 13, 2006. That morning Handler appeared on the Today show as Lemony Snicket's "representative."
Handler has also written short fiction and picture books under the Lemony Snicket pseudonym. As part of his support of Occupy Wall Street, he wrote "Thirteen Observations made by Lemony Snicket while watching Occupy Wall Street from a Discreet Distance." The piece was published on the Occupy Writers website.
Currently, Handler is working on a new series of novels, All the Wrong Questions, which serve as prequels to A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Music
Although Handler played accordion in two bands following college, it was 69 Love Songs, a three-album set by The Magnetic Fields, that finally gained notice. In the project's boxed set, he offers a lengthy interview with band leader Stephin Merritt about the project, as well as conversations about each song. Handler also appears in the 2009 documentary Strange Powers, by Kerthy Fix and Gail O'Hara, about Merritt and the Magnetic Fields.
Handler has gone on to play accordion in several other Merritt projects, including music by The Magnetic Fields, The 6ths and The Gothic Archies, the last of which provided songs for the audiobooks for the Lemony Snicket book series. In 2006, Gothic Archies released an album contained with all thirteen songs from the thirteen audiobooks.
Film
Handler has also had some scattered success in film work. He produced the screenplay for Rick, based on the Verdi opera Rigoletto, and also wrote the screenplay for Kill the Poor, based on the novel by Joel Rose.
He was involved in the screenwriting process for the film version of A Series of Unfortunate Events. He was ultimately removed from the project, having completed eight separate drafts of the film before giving up. (Robert Gordon, screenwriter of Galaxy Quest, replaced Handler, eventually receiving credit for the film's screenplay, under Handler's request.)
Handler, however, submitted commentary for the DVD version, alongside director Brad Silberling. In character as Lemony Snicket, he derides the Lemony Snicket of the film—played by Jude Law—as an impostor. At numerous times during the track he expresses sympathy for the Baudelaire children and implies that he is being held captive by the director in order to do the commentary.
Controversy
At the 2014 National Book Awards ceremony, Handler made a racist joke while announcing author Jacqueline Woodson as winner of the Young People's Literature Award. Woodson is African-American, as well as a friend of Handler. Handler attempted a joke about watermelon that backfired and caused a firestorm of criticism. He issued multiple apologies and donated $10,000 to We Need Diverse Books, promising to match donations up to $100,000.
In a New York Times op-ed article, Woodson explained that in "making light of that deep and troubled history" Handler had come from a place of ignorance. His misguided joke underscored the continued need to "give people a sense of this country's brilliant and brutal history, so no one ever thinks they can walk onto a stage one evening and laugh at another's too often painful past."
Handler referred to the incident as "a disaster of my own making.... [T]he story did not go out well and many, many people were very upset by it, and rightfully so." (From Wikipedia.)