Adam Selzer | |
|---|---|
 Selzer in 2015. | |
| Born | July 13, 1980 Des Moines, Iowa |
| Occupation | Author |
| Nationality | American |
Adam Selzer (born July 13, 1980, in Des Moines, Iowa) is an American author, originally of young adult and middle grade novels, though his work after 2011 has primarily been adult nonfiction.
Adam Selzer's first novel was How To Get Suspended and Influence People, a 2007 Random House novel which was included on the Chicago Public Schools 2007 Summer Reading List. [1] It was also nominated for a Cybils 2007 Young Adult Fiction award, [2] and, in 2009, made national news after attempts were made to have it removed from an Idaho library; [3] [4] it was included in the American Library Association's Banned Books Week packet in 2010. [5] In 2013, his 2011 novel Sparks (published under the name "SJ Adams") was named a Stonewall Honor book, [6] as well as being placed on the ALA's "Rainbow List." [7] His Smart Aleck's Guide to American History (Random House 2009) was nominated for a YALSA award for nonfiction by the American Library Association in 2011, [8] and his novel for younger readers, I Put a Spell On You: From the Files of Chrissie Woodward, Spelling Bee Detective (which was based on Watergate) was nominated for a Great Lakes Book Award [9] and short-listed for an Edgar award nomination. It became a notable choice for classroom reading. [10] A 2009 short film he co-wrote, At Last, Okemah! , won awards at multiple festivals. [11] [12]
In 2009, Adam's editor at Random House asked him to write a book based on "I Thought She Was a Goth," a song he had written a decade earlier. The resulting book, I Kissed a Zombie and I Liked It was released in January 2010. [13] to acclaim from trade reviewers, who described it as "smart," "original," "hilarious," and "a scathing parody (of the paranormal romance genre)". [14] Film rights were optioned by Disney Channel Original Movies [15] A follow-up (to both that book and I Put a Spell On You) entitled Extraordinary* was released by Delacorte in 2011, [16] the same day as he published Sparks with Flux under the name SJ Adams. [17]
His first nonfiction book for Random House was The Smart Aleck's Guide to American History, [18] and was selected as a Junior Library Guild selection. Critics frequently compared the humor to that of The Daily Show and Mark Twain. [18] [19]
Most of his books (and many of his songs) take place in Cornersville Trace, a fictional suburb of Des Moines. [20]
In addition to his book work, Adam works as a historian, tour guide and ghost investigator in Chicago. In 2009, his first adult nonfiction title with a major publisher, Your Neighborhood Gives Me the Creeps, told stories of his life and work as a ghost tour guide and as a skeptic in the ghost-hunting field. He stepped down from his position with Weird Chicago Tours after the Halloween season in 2009. [21] In 2011, he returned to tour guide work for the Chicago Hauntings tour company and continued with them until 2015.
In 2017 he released the first comprehensive biography of Chicago multi-murderer HH Holmes.
Jonathan Weiner is an American writer of non-fiction books based on his biological observations, focusing particularly on evolution in the Galápagos Islands, genetics, and the environment.
Sara Paretsky is an American author of detective fiction, best known for her novels focused on the protagonist V. I. Warshawski.
James John Patrick Murphy was an American author. He wrote more than 35 nonfiction and fiction books for children, young adults, and general audiences, including more than 30 about American history. He won the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association in 2010 for his contribution in writing for teens.
Aidan Chambers is a British author of children's and young-adult novels. He won both the British Carnegie Medal and the American Printz Award for Postcards from No Man's Land (1999). For his "lasting contribution to children's literature" he won the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2002.
Pedro and Me is an autobiographical graphic novel by Judd Winick regarding his friendship with AIDS educator Pedro Zamora after the two met while on the reality television series The Real World: San Francisco. It was published in September 2000.
Martha Elizabeth "Libba" Bray is an American writer of young adult novels including the Gemma Doyle Trilogy, Going Bovine, and The Diviners.
Richard Wayne Peck was an American novelist known for his contributions to modern young adult literature. He was awarded the Newbery Medal in 2001 for his novel A Year Down Yonder. He received the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association in 1990.
Walter Dean Myers was an American writer of children's books best known for young adult literature. He was born in Martinsburg, West Virginia, but was raised in Harlem. A tough childhood led him to writing and his school teachers would encourage him in this habit as a way to express himself. He wrote more than one hundred books including picture books and nonfiction. He won the Coretta Scott King Award for African-American authors five times. His 1988 novel Fallen Angels is one of the books most frequently challenged in the U.S. because of its adult language and its realistic depiction of the Vietnam War.
Readers' advisory is a service which involves suggesting fiction and nonfiction titles to a reader through direct or indirect means. This service is a fundamental library service; however, readers' advisory also occurs in commercial contexts such as bookstores. Currently, almost all North American public libraries offer some form of readers' advisory.
Kerry Madden is an American author of teen novels and a professor of creative writing at Antioch University and the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Jennifer Donnelly is an American writer best known for the young adult historical novel A Northern Light.
Marcus Sedgwick was a British writer and illustrator. He authored several young adult and children's books and picture books, a work of nonfiction and several novels for adults, and illustrated a collection of myths and a book of folk tales for adults. According to School Library Journal his "most acclaimed titles" were those for young adults.
Emily Jenkins, who sometimes uses the pen name E. Lockhart, is an American writer of children's picture books, young-adult novels, and adult fiction. She is known best for the Ruby Oliver quartet, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, and We Were Liars.
At Last, Okemah! is a 2009 short film directed by Chicago-based independent filmmaker Michael Glover Smith, based on an original screenplay by novelist Adam Selzer and Smith. The film had its world premiere at the Chicago International REEL Shorts Festival on Sunday, September 13, 2009, where it won an Audience Choice Award. It was also an Official Selection of the 2009 Asheville Film Festival, the 2010 Tallahassee Film Festival and the 2010 Chicago International Music and Movies Festival, where the film effectively "opened" a concert by cast member Jon Langford. This unique double bill was a "Recommended" screening by Cine-File, Chicago's guide to independent and alternative cinema.
Phillip M. Hoose is an American writer of books, essays, stories, songs, and articles. His first published works were written for adults, but he turned his attention to children and young adults to keep up with his daughters. His work has been well received and honored more than once by the children's literature community. He won the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, Nonfiction, for The Race to Save the Lord God Bird (2004), and the National Book Award, Young People's Literature, for Claudette Colvin (2009).
Mexican WhiteBoy is a 2008 novel by Matt de la Peña, published by Delacorte Press. De la Peña drew on his own adolescent passion for sports in developing his main character Danny, a baseball enthusiast. The novel, which is set in National City, California, uses Spanglish and has a bicultural theme.
The YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction, established in 2010, is an annual literary award presented by the Young Adult Library Services Association of the American Library Association that "honors the best nonfiction book published for young adults ". It was first given in 2010. The award is announced at ALA's Midwinter Meeting.
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice is a 2009 young adult nonfiction book by Phillip Hoose, recounting the experiences of Claudette Colvin in Montgomery, Alabama, during the Civil Rights Movement.
Wilder Girls is a futuristic young adult horror novel by Rory Power, published July 9, 2019 by Delacorte Press. The book is a New York Times best seller.
Courage Has No Color: The True Story of the Triple Nickles, America's First Black Paratroopers is a nonfiction book geared toward children, written by Tanya Lee Stone and published January 22, 2013 by Candlewick Press. The book tells the story of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, nicknamed The Triple Nickles, an all-Black airborne unit of the United States Army during World War II.
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