Augusten Burroughs

Augusten Burroughs born 23 October 1965

Augusten Xon Burroughs (born Christopher Robison in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American writer, known for his New York Times best-selling memoir Running with Scissors (2002), which spawned a feature film of the same name.

Burroughs is the son of poet and writer Margaret Robison and the late John G Robison, head of the philosophy department at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His mother sent him to live with her psychiatrist's family in western Massachusetts.

Some of his childhood experiences were chronicled in Running with Scissors; the book spurred a June 2005 lawsuit in which the Turcotte family of Cambridge, Massachusetts claimed that various family members (particularly Dr Rodolph Turcotte, Burroughs' former legal guardian) were defamed by the book's portrayal of the eccentric Finch family. The family eventually settled with Burroughs and his publisher.

Burroughs dropped out of school. He claims to have worked his way up to a high-paying job in the advertising industry before leaving the field to become a writer. His written work blends the fantastic and the mundane, and is delivered in a matter-of-fact style. In addition to Scissors, Burroughs penned a second memoir, Dry (2003), about his experience during and after treatment for alcoholism. That was followed by two collections of short stories, Magical Thinking (2003) and Possible Side Effects (2006). His first book, the novel Sellevision (2000), is currently in production as a feature film.

His writing has appeared in publications such as The New York Times, House and Garden, Blackbook, New York Magazine, The Times, Attitude, and Out. Burroughs writes a monthly column for Details.

Burroughs lives in New York and Amherst, Massachusetts, with his partner of many years, Dennis Pilsits, and their French bulldogs Bentley, and The Cow.

In January 2007, Vanity Fair published an article ('Ruthless With Scissors') alleging that Burroughs had fabricated large parts of his memoirs.