Charles Leerhsen

Charles Leerhsen, the author of Blood and Smoke: A True Tale of Mystery, Mayhem and the Birth of the Indy 500, has written articles for Sports Illustrated, Esquire, Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, Money, People, TV Guide and Seventeen. He has been an editor at SI, People and Us Weekly, and spent 11 years at Newsweek, where as a senior writer he covered sports (including several Olympic Games), entertainment, family stories and breaking news. At Newsweek he won the National Mental Health Association award for a cover story on alcohol and the family. He has also co-written three best-selling biographies: Trump: Surviving at the Top, with Donald Trump; Press On! Adventures in the Good Life, with pioneer aviator Chuck Yeager; and The Last Great Ride, with entertainment mogul Brandon Tartikoff. Leerhsen's previous book was the highly-acclaimed Crazy Good: The True Story of Dan Patch, the Most Famous Horse in America. He is currently working on a biography of Ty Cobb, his third book for Simon & Schuster.

Leerhsen has three daughters: Erica, an actor; Deborah, a banker; and Nora, a high school teacher in Chicago. He and his wife, the writer Sarah Saffian, live in Brooklyn.