Sam Stall was born in Goshen, Indiana, and spent his early years in Florida before his family relocated to Indianapolis. He graduated from Ball State University (a school famous for educating such oddball success stories as David Letterman and Garfield creator Jim Davis) in 1984, then spent the next decade-and-a-half working for Indianapolis Monthly magazine -- first as a summer intern (situated at a tiny, computer-less desk next to the coffee machine) then, a few years down the road, as editor.

        He left the daily grind of magazine work in 2000, becoming a full-time freelancer. Since then he’s written or co-written almost 20 books, including two novels and two novellas; pop culture non-fiction ranging from an examination of as-seen-on-TV products to a chronicle of bizarre suburban crimes; and a highly successful series of books about dogs and cats. Two, The Dog Owner’s Manual and The Cat Owner’s Manual, have achieved combined sales of more than 250,000 copies worldwide. A couple of others, 100 Dogs Who Changed Civilization and 100 Cats Who Changed Civilization, have been translated into a dozen languages, from French to Finnish to Korean.