In 2010, Richtel wrote, and was interviewed, about the impact on the human brain of living with 'a deluge of data' from digital devices. Since 2012, the strip is now written by its longtime illustrator Darrin Bell. He co-created and formerly wrote the syndicated comic Rudy Park under the pen name Theron Heir. His first book, called Hooked, is about a reporter whose life is turned upside down when he escapes a cafe explosion after a stranger hands him a note in his dead fiancée's handwriting warning him to leave. Richtel also writes fiction and has authored several mystery/thrillers, including Dead on Arrival (William Morrow, 2017), called by the New York Times Book Review 'An intellectual thrill ride that tucks searing social critique into the Trojan horse of a save-the-world page-turner.' He also wrote Doomsday Equation (2015), The Cloud, and Devil's Plaything. It was named one of the best books of 2014 by The Christian Science Monitor, San Francisco Chronicle, and Amazon, among others. He is the author of A Deadly Wandering, a New York Times-bestselling nonfiction narrative that intertwines the story of a car crash caused by a texting driver with a study of the science of attention.

Richtel obtained a bachelor's degree from the University of California at Berkeley and an MS from the Columbia School of Journalism. He was awarded the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for a series on distracted driving. Matt Richtel (born Octoin Los Angeles) is an American writer and journalist for The New York Times.

An Elegant Defense by Matt Richtel