Daniel Handler

Six of Handler's major works have been published under his name.[23] His first, The Basic Eight, was rejected by many publishers for its subject matter and tone (a dark view of a teenage girl's life). Handler claims that the novel was rejected 37 times before finally being published in 1999.[24][25]

Watch Your Mouth, his second novel, was completed before publication of The Basic Eight. It follows a more operatic theme, complete with stage directions and various acts. Watch Your Mouth's second half replaces the opera troupe with the form of a 12-step recovery program, linguistically undergone by the protagonist. In April 2005, Handler published Adverbs, a collection of short stories that he says are "about love." It was followed in January 2011 by Why We Broke Up, which received a 2012 Michael L. Printz honor award.[26] Handler's novel, We Are Pirates[27] is about a modern-age pirate who "wants to be an old-fashioned kind of pirate."[28] It was released on February 3, 2015.[29] His most recent novel, All the Dirty Parts, was published in May 2017[30] and "takes the blunt and constant presence of a male teen's sexuality and considers it with utmost seriousness".[23]

Handler served as a judge for the PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship in 2012.[31] In 2016, he founded Per Diem Press, a poetry competition for young writers.[32] He awarded $1,000 to three prize winners and published a chapbook with their work.[33]

Handler at a book signing in 2006

Handler wrote the bestselling series of 13 novels A Series of Unfortunate Events under the Snicket pseudonym from 1999 to 2006.[34] The books concern three orphaned children who experience increasingly terrible events following the death of their parents and burning of their home (done by a man named Count Olaf and his troupe of associates), and Snicket acts as the narrator and biographer of the fictional orphans.[35] He has also narrated the audiobooks for three consecutive books in the series, before handing back the narrating job to the original narrator, Tim Curry.

From 2012 to 2015, Handler published the four-part series All the Wrong Questions under the name Lemony Snicket; the books explore Snicket's childhood and V.F.D. apprenticeship in the failing town Stain'd-by-the-Sea.[36][37][38] He has also written other children's novels under the Snicket name, including companion books to his two Snicket series,[39] and children's books such as The Composer is Dead[40] and The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming.[41]

Handler playing and singing at a reading of The End in 2006

Handler was in two bands after college, the Edith Head Trio and Tzamboni, but it wasn't until 69 Love Songs, a three-album set by The Magnetic Fields, that his music attracted attention. He played accordion on several tracks in 69 Love Songs.[42][43][44] In the box set of the project, Handler provides a lengthy interview with band leader Stephin Merritt about the project, as well as conversations about each song. He also appears in the 2009 documentary Strange Powers, by Kerthy Fix and Gail O'Hara, about Merritt and the Magnetic Fields.

He has played accordion in several other Merritt projects, including music by the Magnetic Fields, The 6ths and The Gothic Archies, the last of which provided songs for the audiobooks in the A Series of Unfortunate Events children's book series. On October 10, 2006, an album by the Gothic Archies was released with all thirteen songs from the thirteen audiobooks in A Series of Unfortunate Events, along with two bonus songs.

In the audio commentary on the film adaptation Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Handler plays a song about how depressing it is to have leeches in a film.

He wrote the lyrics to the song "Radio," performed by One Ring Zero,[45] and the lyrics to "The Gibbons Girl" by Chris Ewen's The Hidden Variable.

• 69 Love Songs – The Magnetic Fields
• Hyacinths and Thistles – The 6ths
• The Tragic Treasury: Songs from A Series of Unfortunate Events – The Gothic Archies
• Distortion – The Magnetic Fields
• Nevermind the Context – Moth Wranglers
• The Composer Is Dead – A collaboration with Nathaniel Stookey, premiered in San Francisco at Davies Symphony Hall on July 8, 2006
• Realism – The Magnetic Fields
• Barricade – Stars
• Love at the Bottom of the Sea – The Magnetic Fields

In 2017, Handler wrote the play Imaginary Comforts, and The Story of The Ghost of The Dead Rabbit, which was performed at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre.[46] The satirical play follows the intertwining lives of three characters and is inspired by the grief Handler felt after the death of his father.[47]

Handler has also had some success in film work. He produced the screenplay for Rick, which was based on the Verdi opera Rigoletto,[48] as well as Kill the Poor, which was based on the novel by Joel Rose.[49]

Handler was involved in the screenwriting process for the film Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, but was ultimately removed from the project. After writing eight drafts of the script for Sonnenfeld,[50] he was replaced by Robert Gordon in May 2003.[51] Handler approved of the changes that were made to his original screenplay.[52] "I was offered credit on the film for screenwriting by the Writers Guild of America," Handler said, "but I didn't take it because I didn't write it. I felt like it would be an insult to the guy who did."[50]

Handler did submit a commentary track for the DVD version, alongside director Brad Silberling. In character as Lemony Snicket, he derides the Lemony Snicket in the film – played by Jude Law – as an impostor, as well as choosing to play accordion and sing about leeches rather than pay attention to the film. At numerous times during the track he shows great sympathy towards the Baudelaire children, and implies that he is being held captive by the director in order to do the commentary.

Handler was a writer on the Netflix series A Series of Unfortunate Events, also contributing lyrics to the show's theme song, which varies each episode.[53][54] The show has won several accolades, including a Peabody Award in 2017 for excellence in Children's & Youth Programming.[55]

• Rick (2003)
• Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)
• Kill the Poor (2006)

• A Series of Unfortunate Events - executive producer,[56] teleplay by, title theme and original song lyrics

• The Basic Eight, Thomas Dunne (1998)
• Watch Your Mouth St. Martin's Press/HarperCollins (2000)
• How to Dress for Every Occasion, by the Pope (with illustrations by Sarah "Pinkie" Bennett, pseudonym for Lisa Brown) McSweeney's (2005)
• Adverbs St. Martin's Press/HarperCollins (2006)
• Why We Broke Up (2011)
• We Are Pirates (2014)
• All the Dirty Parts (2017)
• Bottle Grove (2019)

As editor or contributor:

• Nonsense Novels by Stephen Leacock (Introduction) New York Review of Books Classics (2004)
• Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs and Some Other Things That Aren't as Scary, Maybe, Depending on How You Feel About Lost Lands, Stray Cellphones, Creatures from the Sky, Parents Who Disappear in Peru, a Man Named Lars Farf and One Other Story We Couldn't Quite Finish, So Maybe You Could Help Us Out by McSweeney's (Introduction and Unfinished story)
• The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade by Herman Melville (Preface) Dalkey Archive Press (2007)
• The Hour: A Cocktail Manifesto by Bernard DeVoto (Introduction) Republished by Tin House Books (2010)
• "Half-Minute Horrors"