Lisa Birnbach

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Lisa Regine Birnbach (born 1957 or 1958) is an American author and media figure best known for co-writing The Official Preppy Handbook, which stayed at No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list for 38 weeks in 1980.

She was born on the Upper East Side of New York City to Jewish parents Naomi and Maks Birnbach. Her maternal grandfather, Norman Salit, was a rabbi. Birnbach attended Birch Wathen Lenox School and Riverdale Country School, then studied at Barnard College for a year before earning a BA with honors in Semiotics from Brown University in 1978. After college, she toured Europe, worked in advertising, and joined The Village Voice as a staff writer in 1979, where she co-wrote the Scenes column.

Birnbach has written more than a dozen books and pieces for major outlets, served as deputy editor of Spy magazine, and worked as a technical consultant on Dead Poets Society. She has hosted TV and radio programs, co-created ABC's Zero Hour, and co-hosted Good Night America. In 2010 she co-wrote True Prep with Chip Kidd and appeared on The Colbert Report. In 2022 she appeared in Netflix’s The Andy Warhol Diaries, where she criticized The Official Preppy Handbook for passages she now sees as discriminatory, noting that two contributors to the book were gay men.

Birnbach lives in Manhattan. She was married to film producer Steven Haft; they later divorced and have three children. Politically, she has criticized Donald Trump and his allies on social media and was involved in a discussion with E. Jean Carroll about an alleged assault by Trump, suggesting charges.