Author Profile:  Dick Grunert

Dick Grunert has been writing for as long as he can remember.  When he was a junior at Cedarburg High School in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, his drama teacher asked him to write a play for the drama department.  That play, titled The Substitute, was a hometown hit and changed his life forever.

After high school, he studied film at Columbia College in Chicago, but every summer, he returned to his hometown to write, produce and direct plays.  Each of these plays explored the trials and tribulations of being a young adult in a comedic and entertaining way that could be enjoyed by people of all ages.

Grunert graduated from Columbia College in 1996 and promptly moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a writer and filmmaker.  He’s best known as being a writer on the Emmy Award-winning Cartoon Network series Adventure Time.  He has also written for the shows Apple and Onion, Bunnicula and Yabba Dabba Dinosaurs.

In 2017, his former high school drama teacher asked Grunert to write another play for her before she retired.  Grunert used his own memories of being a teenager and aspiring filmmaker as the basis for his play The Best Worst Day Of My Life.  The play was picked up by Pioneer Drama Service and won the 2019 Shubert Fendrich Memorial Playwriting Contest.

Grunert currently lives in Santa Clarita, CA with his wife, dog and two cats.