How Real is Reality TV?

Saturday, September 19, 2025
Time: TBD
Milford Theater – Ticketed event

Stephen Fishbach on his novel Escape!

How much reality is in Reality TV? Network execs want ratings, and the TV producers who follow contestants and film their every move need to create a gripping storyline. But what if the contestants, who are real flesh-and-blood people, don’t match the personas the producers so eagerly want? On a TV island, the final edit can make you look like a villain or a hero, even if that’s not who you think you are. Join best-selling novelist (and two-time Survivor contestant) Stephen Fishbach on a literary adventure in which we all edit our storylines.

Stephen Fishbach with book Escape

Stephen Fishbach

Stephen Fishbach is a bestselling novelist and Pushcart Prize-winning short story writer.

His novel Escape! was an instant national bestseller and received praise in the Atlantic, Slate, Los Angeles Review of Books, People, and many others. The New Yorker’s Emily Nussbaum called it “a gorgeously written, compassionate, but ultimately devastating portrait of the lives of the human beings working inside (and often, crushed by) the entertainment machine.” It was also featured on Entertainment Weekly’s Must List.

Stephen is host of the literary podcast Paraphrase and co-host of The Survivor Know-It-Alls with Rob Cesternino.

In 2008, he was runner-up on the TV show Survivor, and in 2015, he was voted by fans to return for an all-star season of the show.

He lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and two children.