Neal Shusterman was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Though he had lots of interests and aspirations in high school, he credits his ninth-grade English teacher, who challenged him to write a story a month for extra credit, with nurturing his sense of himself as writer.
No years of toiling in anonymity for Shusterman — within a year of graduation from college at UC Irvine, he had landed both a book deal and a job working on a movie script, and his life as a full-time writer — of young-adult literature, TV shows music, stage plays, short films, even games — had begun.
Shusterman’s books for teens, including The Schwa Was Here, Everlost, and Unwind, have won numerous national awards. His latest book, Antsy Does Time, is a companion title to The Schwa Was Here.
Shusterman lives with his family in Southern California.
