Samuel Shem

Samuel Shem is the pen name of Stephen Bergman, a doctor, novelist, playwright, and activist. A Rhodes Scholar, he was on the faculty of Harvard Medical School for three decades. His books include Mount Misery, the 2008 National BestBook Award winner The Spirit of the Place, and Fine. With his wife, Janet Surrey, he wrote the hit off-Broadway play Bill W. and Dr. Bob, which won the Performing Arts Award of the National Council on Alcoholism in 2007, and the nonfiction book We Have to Talk: Healing Dialogues Between Women and Men, winner of the 1999 Boston Interfaith Council's Paradigm Shift Award. He lives in Boston and Costa Rica.