About

Daniel’s fiction, humor, and pop culture rants have appeared in the LA Times, UK Guardian, Mojo, AP Newswire, Jewish Journal, Billboard, L.A. Reader, and California Magazine, as well several books including Too Cool, Hardcore California, Turn Up the Radio!, and Drinking with Bukowski.

His debut mystery novel, The Last Songbird, was published by Melville House in Spring ‘23.

The son of a Moroccan sailor and a beatnik from Brighton Beach, Daniel Weizmann grew up the youngest in a big household where seven languages were spoken on the daily. By the age of ten, he had begun writing in earnest, receiving early praise and encouragement from playwright Miguel Piñero. With his bar mitzvah money, Daniel started the early L.A. punk fanzine Rag in Chains under the nom de plume Shredder and was quickly enlisted by legendary Flipside Fanzine as well as the L.A. Weekly. His freewheeling autobiographical column “High School Confidential” became a citywide hit, and by 16, he was reading and performing throughout Southern California alongside Wanda Coleman, Holly Hunter, Henry Rollins, Beck, and others. He went on to release two award-winning spoken word CDs produced by Harvey Kubernik for the SST/New Alliance label.

Daniel is the as-told-to for DeeDee Ramone’s autobio Lobotomy as well as the editor of Timothy Leary’s last collection, The Delicious Grace of Moving One’s Hand. He’s also the author of several volumes of Price Stern Sloan’s Mad Libs, editor of RL Stine’s Fear Street series, and was once the judge for a "Write Like Ellroy" contest at Vintage Crime / Black Lizard. An avid lyric fan, he’s written for everyone from Def Jam rappers to folk singers to standup comics, and even penned the songs for an original revue performed on 42nd Street.

Most recently, his short story “Mimsy” appeared in Francesca Lia Block’s Rough Magick anthology. In 2020, he co-authored a business book for Harper Leadership (Game Changer) and, in 2021, several of his essays appeared in Jimi Hendrix Voodoo Child (Sterling.)

Last winter, Nottingham UK's Failsafe Magazine did a ten page interview with Daniel about his adventures in the pop world, and the LA Weekly recently described him as “an incomparable punk stylist.”