Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Martin Perlman has spent his adult life out West in California, Colorado, and Washington. Influences on his psyche include repeated viewings of Rocky and Bullwinkle, repeated listenings to Tom Lehrer and Firesign Theatre, and repeated readings of the collected works of James Thurber, J. G. Ballard and Flann O’Brien (Brian O’Nolan).

In an age of specialists, he considers himself to be one of the last of the generalists.

Along the Way, he has been a pipe and tobacco salesclerk, a ski lift operator, a dishwasher at an Italian vegetarian restaurant, a bay leaf harvester, a bookstore clerk, a freshman English instructor, a proofreader and stock boy for an independent publisher, a harmonica player for a rock band, the only dues-paying member of an improv group, a freelance writer, a staffer for a weekly news and entertainment magazine, a short story and humor writer, a director of communications at a health foundation and a communications specialist at a university.

He lives in Seattle, Washington, with his wife Lane and daughter Lila.

Thinks Out Loud is his debut novel.