Raised in Providence, Rhode Island, Ari Newman is a film producer, lecturer, writer, amateur gourmet chef, and a community activist for which he was honored with the first Charlotte Bloomberg Award presented to him in 1993 by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. During his senior year at Boston University he produced his first feature film, Squeeze, which was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award and released by Miramax Films.
His films have appeared at countless international film festivals, including the Sundance Film Festival, at which Next Stop Wonderland was purchased for one of the largest sums ever paid for a Sundance film. In the United States he released All My Loved Ones starring Rupert Graves as Nicholas Winton, the stockbroker who organized the Kindertransport which saved the lives of over 600 children during World War 2 and was Slovakia's official Best Foreign Language Film submission to the 72nd Academy Awards. His most famous film is National Lampoon's Van Wilder considered by many to be Ryan Reynolds break out film.
Mrs. Vanderbilt is his second book. In early March 2017 he released his first book, AMERICA FIRST A Modern Fable a story about a modern day civil war, which became the first book to have been both written and published after the 2017 Presidential Inauguration. In January of 2020 AMERICA FIRST Special Post Impeachment Edition was released.
Originally written as a screenplay, on the morning of January 22, 2017, it was adapted becoming the first book worldwide to have been both written and published after the 2017 inauguration when it was released on AMAZON March 3, 2017.
On Election night, there is no clear winner, and the next day, even with 100% of the precincts reporting, the results are too close to call. This time the recount is in Ohio, and after several tedious weeks, The Supreme Court hands Ohio to the Democrats, thereby making the Republican incumbent a one-term President.
A month later, the Congress, Cabinet and Supreme Court gather at the Capitol to hear the State of the Union. Only two of the nation’s top leaders are not present, the newly appointed Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, James Jimmy Hunter who is attending his daughter’s wedding, and the Secretary of Transportation, Clarence Wilson, the only Republican in the Cabinet. According to tradition, one cabinet member is left behind as a precaution for the continuity of government in the event of a disaster. Secretary Wilson thus escapes the fate of the rest of the Cabinet when a terrorist attack kills everyone at the Capitol, leaving him the new President of the United States. AMERICA FIRST is an action packed story of terrorism, treason, a Red State / Blue State civil war, and an investigation that leads into the highest political offices in the land.
"This book is not political in the sense of promoting a specific politician, party, or policy. Rather, its purpose is to raise issues concerning the fragility of American democracy. Other than Oman, San Marino, and Morocco, the American government is the oldest continuous political and government system in the world today. Perhaps a page one re-write of the constitution is needed and that constitutional conventions should be at the nucleus of this continued endeavor." –Ari Newman