Blake Nelson

Blake Nelson's first novel Girl (1994) has been translated into six foreign languages and was made into a feature film. After Girl, he published two more adult novels, Exile (1997) and User (2001). In 2003 he wrote his first Young Adult novel, The New Rules of High Sschool.

Since then Nelson has published six YA novels, New Rules, Rockstar Superstar, Prom Anonymous, Gender Blender, They Came From Below and Paranoid Park, which has been made into an award winning film by Gus Van Sant.

His latest book is Destroy All Cars.

Last week I asked him what he was reading. His reply:

Right now I am beginning David Levithan's Love is the Higher Law, which I heard him read from about a year ago in NY. It's about 9/11 and the passage I heard had a cool haunting quality to it. I stayed away from 9/11 literature during the first wave of books on that subject. I couldn't really digest it, the reality of what happened or the reaction to the reality.

Now though I am ready to look at it again. And feel it on a visceral level. Sometimes I close myself off to things as they are happening to maintain my "cold and objective" writer's perspective, but when it's time to go there, literature is a great way to experience things.

Visit Blake Nelson's website.

--Marshal Zeringue