Background

Neal was born on November 12, 1962, in Brooklyn, New York, to a working-class American family, and from the very beginning had developed a liking for reading books. He is the son of Milton and Charlotte Ruth Shusterman.

Education

After Shusterman's parents moved to Mexico City, he finished high school there at the American School Foundation. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and Drama from the University of California, Irvine, 1985.

Career

After graduating from the University of California, Irvine, Neal took up a job at the Irvin Arthur Associates, working as an assistant at the talent agency. While working for the agency, he met Lloyd Segan there, who later ended up becoming his assistant. Within a year of meeting Lloyd, he had bagged his first book deal and a job as a screenwriter.

Shusterman has had a total of 12 books published so far along with many short stories and poems as well. He has done the screenwriting for hit TV shows such as The X-Files and produced many trilogies. His most famous works include books such as The Dark Side of Nowhere, Downsiders, and Full Tilt. The Skinjacker Trilogy written by him has been a hit with readers and one of the most famous of trilogies ever written in the young-adult fiction genre. All the hard work done by Shusterman has paid off in the form of numerous awards and accolades which he has received so far.

Achievements

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  Neal Shusterman's major achievement is in becoming one of the most respected authors in the field of writing and one of the most popular ones when it comes to churning out work appealing to young-adult readers. He has also served as a judge for PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship in the year 2012, which only goes on to justify his caliber. He has written for many other TV shows which are targeted for the young audience, such as Goosebumps and Animorphs.
  
  In the year 2005 he won the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, the year 2008 had him achieving California Young Reader Medal for his book, The Schwa Was Here and recently in 2015, he was honored with the National Book Award for Young People's Literature for his work in the name of Challenger Deep.

Works

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• book

  • Dry

    (When the California drought escalates to catastrophic pro...)

    2018
  • Thief of Souls

    (A cataclysmic explosion has given earthly teens astronomi...)

    1999
  • Bruiser

    (Tennyson is not surprised, really, when his family begins...)

    2010
  • Full Tilt

    (Sixteen-year-old Blake has always been the responsible on...)

    2003
  • UnWholly

    (Rife with action and suspense, this riveting companion to...)

    2012
  • Everfound

    (While Mary lies in a glass coffin aboard a ghost train he...)

    2011
  • UnDivided

    (Proactive Citizenry, the company that created Cam from th...)

    2014
  • Tesla's Attic

    (After their home burns down, fourteen-year-old Nick, his ...)

    2014
  • Stories To Shatter Your Brian

    (A spectacular collection of stories that are by turns ter...)

    1996
  • The Shadow Club

    (The Shadow Club starts simply enough: the kids who are ti...)

    2002
  • Challenger Deep

    (Caden Bosch is on a ship that's headed for the deepest po...)

    2015
  • UnBound

    (Connor Lassiter’s fight to bring down Proactive Citizenry...)

    2015
  • Scythe

    (A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery: hu...)

  • Dread Locks

    (Tara's eyes are always hidden behind designer sunglasses,...)

    2005
  • Everlost

    (Nick and Allie don’t survive the car accident, but their ...)

    2006
  • Red Rider's Hood

    (Red, a boy famous for cruising around in a blood-colored ...)

    2005
  • UnSouled

    (Connor and Lev are on the run after the destruction of th...)

    2013
  • Downsiders

    (Beneath the sewer grates and manholes of the city lies a ...)

    1999
  • The Dark Side of Nowhere

    (A classic science fiction novel from bestselling author N...)

    1997
  • Twenty Twisted Tales

    (Imagine being trapped forever in someone else’s nightmare...)

    2007
  • The Schwa was Here

    (They say his clothes blend into the background, no matter...)

    2004
  • Chasing Forgiveness

    (Preston Scott was only twelve years old when his father k...)

    2015
  • Duckling Ugly

    (Cara is so ugly, mirrors would rather break than show her...)

    2006
  • The Eyes of Kid Midas

    (Kevin Midas is sick of being picked on, teased and tormen...)

    1992
  • Everlost; Everwild; Everfound

    (Not every child who dies goes on to the afterlife. Some a...)

    2011
  • The Shadow Club Rising

    (The Shadow Club doesn't exist anymore. The group of secon...)

    2003
  • The Toll

    (Citra and Rowan have disappeared. Endura is gone. It seem...)

    2019
  • Thunderhead

    (Humans learn from their mistakes. I cannot. I make no mis...)

    2019
  • Everwild 2009
  • Three Hawking's Hallway 2017

Views

Quotations: "I tend not to have a problem coming up with ideas because it takes so long to write a book. On the average, it takes me six months to write a book. During those six months, I’m going to have a few ideas. Usually, when I’m done writing a book, I know which one I’m passionate about to work on next."

"Being a professional writer is like leaping off a cliff and suddenly discovering that you can fly, which is an amazing feeling. And then once you are airborne, realizing that there’s nowhere to ever land that you can never land, you have to constantly keep flying and sometimes that flying can become exhausting. But I would rather be doing nothing else. I love what I do. I push myself so hard because it is a gift to be able to earn a living doing something creative. I don’t want to squander that gift."

"It might seem obvious, but I think there are a lot of people who are in love with the idea of writing. And when it comes down to it, they are not willing to put in the hard work. A lot of people talk about writer’s block. The way I see it, there’s no such thing as writer’s block. Writing is sometimes really easy and the ideas flow, but most of the time, it’s hard and those ideas aren’t flowing. People think that’s writer’s block. It’s not writer’s block, that’s writing. You have to be willing to do the hard work of writing, which is when the ideas aren’t coming and it does feel like you’re banging your head against the wall. Once you’ve done that and you’ve written something, then write something else and write again and keep on doing it."

"A most important part of the writing process. Nothing’s ever done the first time you write it."

"To be a writer, you have to be a reader. Read a lot of different things, not just the genres that you like. Read outside your comfort zone so you can get perspective on literature out there."

"Characters grow in the process of writing, and revision. It’s very important to me that the characters feel real. To me they ARE real. Real kids in unreal circumstances. No matter what the subject matter, or plot of a story, the characters are the most important part. The plot comes secondary to them. Sometimes my characters make choices that go against what I wanted them to do. I have to let them make their own choices, even if it changes the story."

"I have always been intrigued by the inventor Nikola Tesla, who is responsible – even more than Edison – for the electrical world we live in. He was years ahead of his time. In Tesla’s Attic, a boy moves into a house with an attic filled with weird junk. So he sells everything that’s there, and then discovers that these were all the last inventions of Tesla, and if they get into the wrong hands, they can destroy the world."

Membership

Shüsterman is a member of the Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists Association, of the Writers Guild of American West, and of the Society Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

Personality

Here is what Neal stated about his daily routine: "I’ll get up early, I’ll drop my daughter off. Maybe I’ll go to hang out at Starbucks or Cinnamon Productions or The Original Pancake House. I’ll sit there and I’ll write for a while, and then I’ll come home, take care of emails and get some more writing done before it’s time to pick them up. If it’s a time when I don’t have to take them and pick them up from school, a lot of those times, I’ll go down to the beach. I tend to want to get out of the house because there are so many things that need to be done around the house.

One of my favorite places to go is the rooftop lounge at La Casa Del Camino in Laguna Beach. I’ll sit up there and have appetizers and meal, looking over at the ocean with my laptop and I’ll just write. Orange County has so many great places to just go and hang out. Locally, I’ll go to Starbucks. I’ll sit in the libraries in Rancho Santa Margarita and Mission Viejo. I’ll just go and hang out there.

Sometimes, I’ll go on writing retreats. I’ll go on a cruise, take one of the ships out of Long Beach and go down to Mexico and spend seven days just focusing on writing. I’ll never get off the ship, just be on the ship. I’ll hang out in the lounges. I love those lounges with an ocean view. You are looking out to a 360-degree view of the ocean."

Quotes from others about the person

• Of Everlost, School Library Journal wrote: “Shusterman has reimagined what happens after death and questions power and the meaning of charity. While all this is going on, he has also managed to write a rip-roaring adventure…”
  
  Of Scorpion Shards, Publisher’s Weekly wrote: “Shusterman takes an outlandish comic-book concept, and, through the sheer audacity and breadth of his imagination makes it stunningly believable. A spellbinder.”

Interests

• traveling

• Philosophers & Thinkers

  Nikola Tesla

• Sport & Clubs

  swimming, tennis

Connections

Neal Shusterman married Elaine Gale Jones on January 31, 1987. Together they have three children: Brendan, Jarrod, Joelle. Today Neal Shusterman lives in Southern California with his four children, who are a constant source of inspiration.

Father:

Milton Shusterman

Mother:

Charlotte Ruth Shusterman

Wife:

Elaine Gale Jones

Daughter:

Joelle Shusterman

Son:

Jarrod Shusterman

Son:

Brendan Shusterman

collaborator:

Lloyd Segan

Lloyd Segan is a principal in Piller/Segan, an independent content production company. Lloyd Segan was a Shusterman's agent getting him his first book deal and a screenwriting job.

References

• Author Neal Shusterman's Official Website