Background

Chuck Wendig was born as Charles David Wendig on April 22, 1976, in New Hope, Pennsylvania, United States. In his childhood, he wanted to be a cartoonist for quite a long time.

Education

Chuck Wendig attended Central Bucks High School East in Buckingham, Pennsylvania. He studied English and religion at Queens University of Charlotte and graduated in 1998.

Career

In his early career, Chuck Wendig worked various odd jobs and published early works under the name C.D. Wendig and C. David Wendig. Before writing fiction professionally, Wendig worked as a freelance RPG writer for over a decade. He has worked as a writer and developer for roleplaying games, contributing to many White Wolf projects from 2002 to 2011, including Hunter: The Vigil.

In 2011 he published his first short story collection called Irregular Creatures. In November 2011 followed Wendig's debut novel, Double Dead, of its shared-world series Tomes of the Dead. A sequel novella Bad Blood was published next year. These two books were completed in 2016 in Tomes of the Dead series. That same year, he published Dinocalypse trilogy without the last book Dinocalypse Forever.

For Abaddon, he also wrote Unclean Spirits, out in May 2013, the first installment of the Gods and Monster series. His Miriam Black series was optioned as a television series by Starz in 2014. Wendig announced on his blog in November 2015 that Starz was no longer developing the adaptation.

Chuck Wendig also wrote the three novels of the Aftermath Trilogy (2015's Aftermath, 2016's Aftermath: Life Debt and 2017's Aftermath: Empire's End), a canon series of books set after the events of Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi as well as a short story focusing on the character of Wuher from A New Hope. He was hired to write Aftermath after posting a tweet saying he wanted to write for Star Wars. The request was successful, and Aftermath was released exactly one year after the tweet, on September 4, 2015. He was originally scheduled to write the comic book series Star Wars: Shadow of Vader along with an as-yet-unannounced book, but the series was canceled following his dismissal from Marvel Comics.

He also has written at least one comic focusing around the character of Vader. In 2015, Archie Comics announced a new comic series written by Wendig and Adam Christopher, featuring a new version of their superhero The Shield. This year Wendig was chosen as the writer of new Marvel ongoing comic book series Hyperion.

Wendig also co-wrote the interactive transmedia project Collapsus with Lance Weiler. Wendig has run his blog Terribleminds since 2000, where he dispenses regular writing advice. Much of his writing advice has been collected in his self-published e-books or his book The Kickass Writer, published in 2013 by Writer's Digest Books.

The recent book by Chuck Wendig is a novel Wanderers (2019).

Achievements

• Wendig has contributed over two million words to the pen-and-paper roleplaying game industry. He was at #4 on The New York Times Best Seller list and #4 on USA Today's best seller list. He was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2013 and nominated for International Digital Emmy Award and Goodreads Choice Award.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Wanderers

    (Shana wakes up one morning to discover her little sister ...)

    2019
  • Beyond Dinocalypse

    (Beyond Dinocalypse is the second book of the Dinocalypse ...)

    2013
  • Dinocalypse Now

    (Dinocalypse Now is the first book of the Dinocalypse seri...)

    2012
  • Unclean Spirits

    (For five years, Cason Cole has been a chew toy for a god....)

    2013
  • Invasive

    (Invasive is the second novel of the Zer0es series. Hannah...)

    2016
  • Zer0es

    (Zer0es is the first book of the Zer0es series. An Anonymo...)

    2015
  • The Complete Double Dead

    (You wouldn’t like Coburn. People don’t, as a rule. And th...)

    2016

• books

  • Miriam Black series

    (Miriam Black series consists of Blackbirds (2012), Mockin...)

  • Star Wars: Aftermath trilogy

    (Star Wars: Aftermath trilogy consists of Aftermath (2015)...)

  • The Heartland Trilogy

    (The Heartland Trilogy consists of Under the Empyrean Sky ...)

  • Mookie Pearl series

    (The Mookie Pearl series consists of The Blue Blazes (2013...)

  • Atlanta Burns series

    (Here are the Atlanta Burns series consists of Atlanta Bur...)

Views

The ideal writing place for Chuck Wendig is a shed. This shed has Wi-Fi, it has HVAC, a ceiling fan, and an attic.

Quotations: "If you sit down and write, you’re a writer."

"The art of criticism is slowly being lost."

"We're all the heroes of our own tales."

"If you want to find the way forward, then stop looking for maps and start walking."

"Stories are like wine; they need time. So take the time. This isn’t a hot dog eating contest. You’re not being judged on how much you write but rather, how well you do it. Sure, there’s a balance — you have to be generative, have to be swimming forward lest you sink like a stone. But generation and creativity should not come at the cost of quality. Give your stories and your career the time and patience it needs."

"Storytellers think they're writing for the audience. They're writing, in a way, to hurt the audience."

Membership

Wendig is a part of the advisory board of Storium, an online storytelling game by Protagonist Labs.

Interests

• Writers

  Stephen King, Robert McCammon

Connections

Chuck Wendig is married to Michelle Kane in 2009. They have a child.

Wife:

Michelle Kane