Chuck Klosterman - Life and Career

Life and Career

Klosterman was born in Breckenridge, Minnesota, the youngest of seven children of Florence and William Klosterman. He is of German and Polish descent. Though he was born in Minnesota, he grew up on a farm in nearby Wyndmere, North Dakota. Klosterman was raised Roman Catholic. He graduated from Wyndmere High School in 1990 and from the University of North Dakota in 1994. After college, he was a journalist in Fargo, North Dakota and later an arts critic for the Akron Beacon Journal in Akron, Ohio, before moving to New York City in 2002.

Klosterman was a senior writer for Spin and had a column titled "My Back Pages" (formerly "Rant and Roll Over" and "### Words from Chuck Klosterman"). In March 2006, it was reported that Klosterman was fired after the magazine was sold and editor-in-chief Sia Michel was replaced, along with many other staffers. He still regularly contributes as a featured columnist to Esquire and has written for GQ, The New York Times Magazine, The Believer, and The Washington Post.

Klosterman participated in an e-mail exchange on ESPN's Page 2 with writer Bill Simmons in August 2004. In September 2005, Simmons interviewed him in his "Curious Guy" segment. Though initially recognized for his rock writing, Klosterman has written extensively about sports and began contributing articles to Page 2 on November 8, 2005. The ESPN site featured his week-long blog from Super Bowl XL in early 2006, and a weekend-long blog covering his experience at the 2007 Final Four.

In 2008, Klosterman spent the summer as the Picador Guest Professor for Literature at the University of Leipzig's Institute for American Studies in Leipzig, Germany.

In 2009, Klosterman married journalist Melissa Maerz.

In 2011, Klosterman joined Grantland.com, a sports and pop culture web site, which was conceived and led by ESPN's Bill Simmons. Klosterman will be a consulting editor.

He also appeared in the first three episodes of the Adult Swim Web Feature "Carl's Lock of the Century of the Week", discussing the year's football games as an animated version of himself and trying (unsuccesfully) to plug his book as Carl cuts him off each time. He vanished after the third episode, with Carl giving the explanation of "He had to go do a book tour and also he didn't like how I kept calling him 'pencilneck'".

In 2012, Klosterman appeared in the documentary film Shut Up and Play the Hits, as the interviewer for an extended interview with the film's subject, LCD Soundsystem leader James Murphy that is featured throughout the film.