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.^[1]

This biography of a living person relies too much on references to primary sources. (November 2019)

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Neal Shusterman
Shusterman at the 2013 Texas Book Festival
Born	(1962-11-12) November 12, 1962 (age 61) New York City, U.S.
Occupation	Novelist
Language	English
Nationality	American
Alma mater	University of California, Irvine
Period	1988–present
Genre	Young adult fiction, dystopian fiction, science fiction
Notable works	Challenger Deep (2015) Scythe (2016) Thunderhead (2018)
Notable awards	National Book Award for Young People's Literature
Children	4
Website
storyman.com

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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.^[2][3] At the age of 16, Shusterman and his family moved to Mexico City.^[4] 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."^{[citation needed]} He attended the University of California, Irvine, where he double-majored in psychology and theater,^[5] and was also on the varsity swim team.^[6][7]

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.^[8]

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.^[9] 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.^[10]

Shusterman has also written for TV, including the Original Disney Channel movie Pixel Perfect, as well as episodes of Goosebumps and Animorphs.^[8] 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.^[11]

• 2005 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award.^[12]
• 2008 California Young Reader Medal for The Schwa Was Here.^[13]
• 2015 National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the Golden Kite Award for Fiction for Challenger Deep.^[14][15][16]
• 2017 Micheal L. Printz Award Honour Book for "Scythe".
• 2019 Young Hoosier Book Award (Middle Grade) for Scythe.^[17]
• 2019 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis for Challenger deep (German: Kompass ohne Norden), chosen by the youth jury