Sam Lansky
Early life[edit]
After his parents divorced, he lived with his father in Manhattan and attended the Dwight School.[1] He began using drugs when he was in his early teens. He was forcibly entered into a wilderness rehabilitation in Utah at 17[2] and became sober when he was 19.[3]
Career[edit]
He enrolled in The New School and graduated with a degree in creative writing. He worked as a freelance music critic before joining the editorial staff of Time.[1] At Time, he profiled Madonna, Nicki Minaj and Adele.
In 2016, he released his first book The Gilded Razor, a memoir of his troubled teenage years.[4] On writing the book, he said, "I cleaned up my act and turned my life around when I was really young. Even though it’s crazy to be releasing a memoir at 27, having not lived that long, I’m writing about things that happened a full decade ago. It took me a while to feel like I had enough distance to tell the story in the way that I wanted to tell it, but I feel like I reached a point to look back on it, and be removed enough to do it justice."[4]
Lansky's first novel, Broken People, was published by Hanover Square Press in 2020.[5] In 2023, Lansky served as the ghostwriter for Britney Spears' memoir, The Woman in Me.[6] He interviewed and profiled Taylor Swift for Time after she was picked as the Person of the Year by the magazine.[7]