Ian Caldwell is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

ist. After graduating from Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

 in 1998, he and his childhood friend Dustin Thomason

Dustin Thomason

Dustin Thomason is an American writer. He co-wrote the 2004 novel The Rule of Four with his childhood friend Ian Caldwell.The Rule of Four reached the top of the New York Times Best Seller list, where it remained for more than six months. The book was a number-one national and international...

 co-wrote the semi-autobiographical The Rule of Four

The Rule of Four

The Rule of Four is a novel written by American authors Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason, and published in 2004. Caldwell, a Princeton University graduate, and Thomason, a Harvard College graduate, are childhood friends who wrote the book after their respective graduations.The Rule of Four reached...

, which was published in 2004.

Caldwell and Thomason graduated from the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology is a Virginia state-chartered magnet school located within Fairfax County, Virginia, United States...

, in Fairfax County, Virginia

Fairfax County, Virginia

Fairfax County is a county in Virginia, in the United States. Per the 2010 Census, the population of the county is 1,081,726, making it the most populous jurisdiction in the Commonwealth of Virginia, with 13.5% of Virginia's population...

, in 1994. Caldwell was a Phi Beta Kappa in history at Princeton. In 2005, Caldwell's wife, Meredith, gave birth to their first child, Ethan Sawyer Caldwell. They live in Vienna, Virginia

Vienna, Virginia

Vienna is a town in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, it had a population of 15,687. Significantly more people live in zip codes with the Vienna postal addresses bordered approximately by Interstate 66 on the south, Interstate 495 on the east, Route 7 to...

.