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Neal Shusterman (born November 12, 1962) is an American writer of young-adult fiction. He won the 2015 National Book Award for Young People's Literature for his book Challenger Deep and his novel, Scythe, was a 2017 Michael L. Printz Honor book.

Early life

Shusterman was born on November 12, 1962, and raised in Brooklyn, New York City. From a young age, Shusterman was an avid reader. His family is Jewish, and has claimed that he is at least 40-50% North African Sephardic according to a DNA test. At the age of 16, Shusterman and his family moved to Mexico City. He finished high school there at the American School Foundation and is quoted as saying that "Having an international experience changed my life, giving me a fresh perspective on the world, and a sense of confidence I might not have otherwise." He attended the University of California, Irvine, where he double-majored in psychology and theater, and was also on the varsity swim team.

Career

After college, Shusterman worked as an assistant at the Irvin Arthur Associates, a talent agency in Los Angeles, where Lloyd Segan became his agent. Within a year, Shusterman had his first book deal and a screenwriting job. He lives in Florida.

Shusterman has received numerous honors for his books, including the National Book Award in 2015 for his novel Challenger Deep, the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, and the 2008 California Young Reader Medal for The Schwa Was Here. He served as a judge for the PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship in 2012. His novels Downsiders and Full Tilt have each won over 20 awards. Unwind has won more than 30 awards and is in development with Universal TV as a television series. His novel Scythe is in development with Universal as a feature film.

He has been nominated four times (twice in 2019; 2020; 2023) in different categories of the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis and won the youth jury award in 2019. In March 2023 the German translation of the book Roxy, written with his son Jarrod Shusterman, was nominated by the youth jury.

Shusterman has also written for TV, including the Original Disney Channel movie Pixel Perfect, as well as episodes of Goosebumps and Animorphs. He has written for R. L. Stine's The Haunting Hour: The Series and is also adapting his novel Challenger Deep for 20th Century Fox.

Fellow author Orson Scott Card invited Shusterman to write novels parallel to Ender's Game about other characters from the series, but schedules didn't permit it, and Card wrote Ender's Shadow and the subsequent series himself.

Awards

• 2005 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award.
• 2008 California Young Reader Medal for The Schwa Was Here.
• 2015 National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the Golden Kite Award for Fiction for Challenger Deep.
• 2017 Micheal L. Printz Award Honour Book for "Scythe".
• 2019 Young Hoosier Book Award (Middle Grade) for Scythe.
• 2019 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis for Challenger deep (German: Kompass ohne Norden), chosen by the youth jury

Bibliography

Fiction series

• I am the Walrus
• Schock The Monkey

• Tesla's Attic (2014) ISBN 978-1423148036
• Edison's Alley (2015) ISBN 978-1423148067
• Hawking's Hallway (2016) ISBN 978-1423155218

• The Schwa Was Here (2004) ISBN 978-0756967192
• Antsy Does Time (2008) ISBN 978-0525478256
• Ship Out of Luck (2013) ISBN 978-0525422266

• Scythe (2016)
• Thunderhead (2018)
• The Toll (2019)
• Gleanings: Stories from the Arc of a Scythe (2022)

• Dread Locks (2005)
• Red Rider's Hood (2005)
• Duckling Ugly (2006)

• The Shadow Club (1988)
• The Shadow Club Rising (2002)

• Everlost (2006)
• Everwild (2009)
• Everfound (2011)

• Scorpion Shards (1995)
• Thief of Souls (1999)
• Shattered Sky (2002)

• Unwind (2007) ISBN 978-1416912040
• UnStrung (2012) (short story) ISBN 978-1442423664
• UnWholly (2012)
• UnSouled (2013) ISBN 978-1442423695
• UnDivided (2014) ISBN 978-1481409759
• UnBound (2015) (short story collection, contains UnStrung)

• The X-Files Young Adult Series

• 3) Bad Sign (1997) [writing as Easton Royce] novelization of The X-Files episode Syzygy
• 10) Dark Matter (1999) [writing as Easton Royce] novelization of The X-Files episode Soft Light

• The X-Files Young Readers Series

• 8) Voltage (1996) [writing as Easton Royce] novelization of The X-Files episode D.P.O.
• 9) E.B.E. (1996) co-authored with Les Martin [writing as Easton Royce] novelization of The X-Files episode E.B.E.

• 1) The Aliens Approach (1996) [writing as Easton Royce] novelization of the pilot episode of the Space: Above and Beyond TV series
• 3) Mutiny (1996) [writing as Easton Royce] novelization of the Space: Above and Beyond episode, Mutiny

Novels

• Dissidents (1989)
• Speeding Bullet (1991)
• What Daddy Did (1991) (later renamed Chasing Forgiveness)
• The Eyes of Kid Midas (1992)
• The Dark Side of Nowhere (1997) ISBN 978-0316789073
• Downsiders (1999)
• Full Tilt (2004) ISBN 978-0689803741
• Bruiser (2010) ISBN 978-0061134081
• Challenger Deep (2015) illustrated by Brendon Shusterman ISBN 978-0061134111
• Dry (2018) co-authored with Jarrod Shusterman ISBN 9781481481960
• Game Changer (February 2021) ISBN 9780061998676
• Roxy (November 2021) co-authored with Jarrod Shusterman ISBN 9781406392128

Picture books

• Piggyback Ninja (1994) Illustrated by Joe Boddy

Short stories

• Resurrection Bay (2013) ISBN 978-0062295163 [published only as an ebook]

Short story collections

• Darkness Creeping: Tales to Trouble Your Sleep (1993)
• Darkness Creeping II: More Tales to Trouble Your Sleep (1995)
• Mindquakes: Stories to Shatter Your Brain (1996)
• Mindstorms: Stories to Blow Your Mind (1996)
• Mindtwisters: Stories To Shred Your Head (1997)
• Mindbenders: Stories to Warp Your Brain (2000)
• Darkness Creeping: Twenty Twisted Tales (2007)
• Violent Ends (2015) co-authored with 17 other authors including, Brendon Shusterman, Shaun David Hutchinson, and Beth Revis

Games

• How to Host a Murder: Roman Ruins (1997)
• How to Host a Murder: The Grapes of Frath (1997)
• How to Host a Teen Mystery: Hot Times at Hollywood High (1997)
• How to Host a Murder: The Good, the Bad, and the Guilty (1998)
• How to Host a Murder: Tragical Mystery Tour (1999)
• How to Host a Teen Mystery: Barbecue with the Vampire (1999)
• How to Host a Murder: Saturday Night Cleaver (2000)
• How to Host a Murder: Maiming of the Shrew (2001)
• How to Host a Teen Mystery: Roswell That Ends Well (2002)
• How to Host a Murder: An Affair to Dismember (2003)

Nonfiction

• Guy Talk (1987)
• It's Ok to Say No to Cigarettes and Alcohol (1988)
• Neon Angel: The Cherie Currie Story (1989) with Cherie Currie
• Kid Heroes: True Stories of Rescuers, Survivors, and Achievers (1991)

Poems

• "Shadows of Doubt" (1993)

Screenwriting credits

Television

• Goosebumps (1996-1998)
• Animorphs (1998)
• The Haunting Hour: The Series (2011)

Film

• Double Dragon (1994)
• Pixel Perfect (2004)

External links

• Official website
• Neal Shusterman on Facebook
• Neal Shusterman on Twitter
• Neal Shusterman on Instagram
• Neal Shusterman at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Neal Shusterman at IMDb
• Neal Shusterman at Library of Congress, with 49 library catalog records