Lee Blessing

Lee Blessing is a playwright and teacher. He was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and graduated from Reed College with a degree in English. As a graduation gift, Blessing's parents offered him a car or a trip to Russia. He chose the trip, which would inspire his best-known play, A Walk In the Woods. Blessing continued his studies at the University of Iowa, where he completed a graduate degree in Speech and Theatre.

A Walk In the Woods was nominated for a Tony and a Pulitzer Prize and was later adapted into a movie. He has an extensive body of work that includes full-length and one-act plays. He is currently the head of the graduate playwriting program at Rutgers University's presitigous Mason Gross School of the Arts.