Seth Greenland is an American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and essayist. Greenland’s most recent novel, his sixth, is Plan Americain, published in France in 2023 by Editions Liana Levi. In 2020, Europa Editions published his first work of non-fiction, A Kingdom of Tender Colors: A Memoir of Comedy, Survival, and Love. Greenland’s fifth novel, The Hazards of Good Fortune, was published by Europa Editions in 2018. It received a starred review in Kirkus and in France was nominated for the Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger and the Grand Prix de Littérature Américaine. He is the author of four other works of fiction. His first, The Bones, explored the vicissitudes of the television comedy world. Published by Bloomsbury in 2005, the Los Angeles Times pronounced it “A remarkable debut.” His second novel, Shining City, was published by Bloomsbury in 2008. The Washington Post named it a Best Book of The Year.  Greenland shifted to crime fiction with a political slant for The Angry Buddhist, published in 2011 by Europa Editions. In her New York Times review, Janet Maslin called it “A fine read for this election season.” I Regret Everything, an investigation of the literary life, was Greenland’s fourth novel. Published by Europa Editions in 2015, the New York Times pronounced it "affecting and funny." All of the novels have been optioned for film or television. They have been translated into several languages. 

Greenland’s play, Jungle Rot, won the Kennedy Center/American Express Fund for New American Plays Award and the American Theater Critics Association Award. Anthologized in Best American Plays, it was published by Dramatists Play Service. His other produced plays include Jerusalem, Red Memories, and Girls in Movies.

Television credits include a two-year stint as a writer-producer on the Emmy-nominated HBO series Big Love. 

His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Le Monde, Le Figaro, L’Express, Quillette, the Jewish Journal, Black Clock, and the French literary journal America.

He is the former host of the LARB Radio Hour, a production of the Los Angeles Review of Books. 

Greenland lives in Los Angeles and Brooklyn with his wife, the author Susan Kaiser Greenland. He is currently at work on a new novel.