Maria Semple is the author of three novels. Her second, Where’d You Go Bernadette, was an international bestseller set in Seattle, where she now lives, and has been translated into 17 languages. Previously based in L.A., where she was a writer for such TV shows as Arrested Development, Mad About You Saturday Night Live, Semple’s wit is legendary. Her father, the screenwriter Lorenzo Semple, Jr., wrote the pilot for the television series Batman.