Lewis Buzbee

Lewis Buzbee is a fourth generation California native who began writing at the age of 15, after reading the first chapter of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Since then he’s been a dishwasher, a bookseller, a publisher, a caterer, a bartender, and a teacher of writing. He and his wife, the poet Julie Bruck, live with their daughter Maddy in San Francisco, just half a block from Golden Gate Park. His books for adults include The Yellow Lighted Bookshop, Fliegelman’s Desire, After the Gold Rush, and First to Leave Before the Sun.

His first novel for middle grade readers, Steinbeck’s Ghost, was published in 2008 by Feiwel and Friends and was selected for these honors: a Smithsonian Notable Book, a Northern California Book Award Nominee, the Northern California Independent Booksellers’ Association Children’s Book of the Year, and the California Library Association’s John and Patricia Beatty Award.

A second middle-grade novel, The Haunting of Charles Dickens, was published in 2011 and won the Northern California Book Award, was nominated for an Edgar, and was selected as a Judy Lopez Memorial Honor Book.

A third middle-grade novel, Bridge of Time, was published in May 2012--time travel, San Francisco, Mark Twain.

A new nonfiction book for adults, Blackboard: The Life of the Classroom, has just been published by Graywolf Press.