Diablo Cody (born June 14, 1978 in Chicago, Illinois), the pen name of Brook Busey-Hunt, is an Academy Award-winning and BAFTA-Award winning writer and blogger. First known for her yearlong foray in the stripping and peep show circuits of Minneapolis, which she candidly chronicled on her Pussy Ranch blog and in her 2006 memoir, Candy Girl: A Year in The Life of an Unlikely Stripper, Cody won the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay for the 2007 film Juno. A sitcom written by Cody, called The United States of Tara, based on an idea by Steven Spielberg, is currently in pilot stage at Showtime. She has several other scripts in the development stage at various studios.
On a whim, Cody signed up for amateur night at a Minneapolis strip club called the Skyway Lounge. Enjoying the experience, she eventually quit her day job and took up stripping full-time. Cody also spent time working peep shows at Sex World, a Minneapolis adult novelty and DVD store. Eventually she became disillusioned with stripping and switched to phone sex before eventually returning to stripping. Cody soon made a retreat to more traditional employment in journalism, and a budding writing career stimulated by her skin trade days.
While still stripping, Cody began writing for City Pages, an alternative Twin Cities weekly newspaper. She left City Pages just before it changed editorial hands. Cody has since written for the now-defunct Jane magazine. In December 2007, Cody debuted as Entertainment Weekly magazine's newest Backpage columnist, joining regular contributors Dalton Ross and the iconic pop horror author Stephen King on a rotational basis.
At the age of 24, Cody wrote her memoir Candy Girl: A Year in The Life of an Unlikely Stripper. The memoir began after Mason Novick, a manager, showed interest in Cody's acerbic wit and the popularity Pussy Ranch had received.
