Ari Magnusson was born in New York but grew up on a farm in rural central Pennsylvania and spent his summers in a cabin on a river in upstate New York, settings that influence his writing, including many of the scenes in the land of his novel, Bitopia.
Ari attended Dickinson College, majoring in history and music. After college he moved to Boston, where he studied fiction and journalism at the Harvard Extension School and at Grub Street. He is currently working on a new book on bullying and a young adult fiction series set in a medieval-style period.
In his first year of high school, Ari was bullied and endured what felt like an eternity of fear, anxiety, and dread until the day a bystander intervened. Even better, he witnessed a technique used by the bystander that rendered the aggressor’s bullying behavior ineffective. From that day on, Ari put the technique into practice and was never bullied again. He is a passionate proponent of educating youth on bullying and individual empowerment techniques.