Mark Z. Danielewski was born in New York City and lives in Los Angeles. He is the author of the award-winning and bestselling novel House of Leaves, National Book Award finalist Only Revolutions, and the novella The Fifty Year Sword, which was performed on Halloween three years in a row at Redcat. His books have been translated into multiple languages, and his work has been the focus of university classes and literary events. In 2015, Danielewski's Thrown, a reflection on Matthew Barney's Cremaster 2, was displayed at the Guggenheim Museum during its Storylines exhibition. Between 2015-2017, Pantheon released five volumes of The Familiar, each an 880-page installment about a 12-year-old girl who finds a kitten and sets off a chain reaction with global consequences. With the release of the series, the New York Times declared Danielewski "America's foremost literary Magus."