G. Neri

G. Neri (Greg Neri) is an award‑winning American author of books for young people, known for his work in young adult and middle grade fiction. He is a Michael L. Printz Award and Coretta Scott King Honor recipient for titles including Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty and Ghetto Cowboy, the latter adapted into the Netflix film Concrete Cowboy starring Idris Elba. His bibliography also includes works such as Chess Rumble, Knockout Games, Surf Mules, Tru & Nelle, Grand Theft Horse, Christo and Jeanne-Claude Wrap the World, Hello, I’m Johnny Cash, My Bicentennial Summer, My Antarctica, and Safe Passage.

In addition to writing, Neri has a background as a storyteller, filmmaker, artist, and digital media producer, and has taught animation and storytelling to inner-city teens in Los Angeles through the group Animaction. He has received National Science Foundation grants that sent him to Antarctica and serves as co-chair of the Antarctic Artists and Writers Collective. Neri contributed the story “Pool Bandits” to the Printz Medal–winning anthology The Collectors: Stories, edited by A.S. King, in which nine acclaimed YA authors explore unusual collections and collectors.[