Stanford Friedman was born and raised in Springfield, Ohio. In 1983, he received his BA in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University, one of the few undergraduate writing programs to exist at that time. That fall, he moved to Manhattan and began a series of odd jobs including holiday help at Sherry Lehman Wines & Liquors where he fetched champagne for the likes of David Letterman and Mrs. Irving Berlin, and a questionable stint selling imported metal etchings door-to-door, which got him thrown out of a host of NYC landmarks. In 1984, he landed a temp job on the loading dock at The New York Times. He parlayed that position into a nine-year climb up the corporate ladder, eventually becoming manager of the NYT Speakers Bureau where he would organize speaking engagements for Times luminaries such as Frank Rich and R.W. Apple. During these years he added an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University and an MLS from Rutgers University to his resumé. In 1995, he began his career as a Research Librarian at Condé Nast. Now, as the company’s Senior Librarian, he has performed over 14,000 online searches on topics ranging from international politics to Beyonce’s eating habits. Stanford received international attention in 2008 and 2009 as a two-time winner of the ESPNZone Ultimate Couch Potato competition, watching non-stop sports for up to 29 straight hours at their Times Square restaurant. He failed to defend his title in 2010, having fallen asleep while watching a golf match at hour 42. Shortly thereafter, the restaurant went out of business. Stanford's writing credits run the gamut from poetry to criticism to meditations on the field of Library Science. His first novel, God's Gift to Women, was published in ebook format in Nov. 2010 by Scott & Nix Inc.