Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Readalikes
Zack Smedley was born in 1995, in an endearing Southern Maryland county almost no one has heard of. He has a degree in Chemical Engineering from UMBC and, alongside writing, currently works within the field.
Smedley is the author of Deposing Nathan, which the New York Times said "is a superb story, told in an original and masterly way", and was a Kirkus Best Books of 2019 selection, an ALA Rainbow List selection, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and winner of the 2019 YA Bi Book Award.
As a member of the LGBT community, his goal is to give a voice to queer young adults, through gritty, morally complex narratives.
Zack Smedley's website
This bio was last updated on 10/19/2021. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.
WELL. I PICKED A BAD YEAR TO WRITE A BOOK WITH heavy subject matter.
The year 2020 will go down in history as a year that took a great deal from us as a whole: lives, jobs, sanity, perceived decency, and personal joy. While I have no right to complain about my incredibly fortunate circumstances throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, there's no other way to say it: This book was written during a year that I should never have picked up a pen, and almost every minute spent at my keyboard was thoroughly joyless.
I always say that my books aren't about protagonists experiencing trauma, but rather, about them conquering it. When I wrote my debut, Deposing Nathan, this worked because I was a college kid who felt on top. Words poured out of me, and when the content got tough, I could step away to enjoy the beauty and exuberance of the world outside my window. This time, though, I felt entirely unqualified: Who was I to rattle on about overcoming obstacles when I was regularly losing afternoons of writing to hypochondriacal panic attacks? How was I supposed to shine a light on human decency when every headline screamed the opposite? Couple this with the countless hours I spent inhibited by this book's heavy topics—which I was determined ...
Susan Mihalic has worked as a book editor, curriculum writer, writing instructor, and freelance writer and editor. She has also taught therapeutic horseback riding. She attended the University of Southern Mississippi and now ... (more)
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Brendan Kiely received an MFA in creative writing from the City College of New York. His writing has appeared in Fiction, Guernica, Big Bridge, and the journal Mikrokosmos Literary Journal, among other publications. ... (more)
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