Jeff Zentner: Mormon Author

Jeff Zentner is the author of The Serpent King, a New York Times Notable Book. The novel has been honored with numerous awards, including the William C. Morris Award, the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award, the International Literacy Association Award, and the Westchester Fiction Award. His books have been nominated and longlisted for the Carnegie Medal. He has also been a finalist for the Indies Choice Award and the Southern Book Prize.

The Serpent King was also a 2016 Whitney Young Adult Debut Award and winner of the 2016 Association of Mormon Letters Young Adult Novel Award. Zentner is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Zentner says he came to writing through music. He was a guitarist who became a songwriter. He has released five albums and has played of recordings for artists such as iggy Pop, Nick Cave, WarrenEllis, Thurston Moore, Debbie Harry, Mark Lanegan, and Lydia Lunch. He wrote The Serpent King when he was transitioning away from songwriting.

His second book is Goodbye Days, which won or was nominated for many awards, such as nominated for the Carnegie Medal, an ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults Top Ten pick, a Publishers Weekly Noteworthy Second Novel of 2017. His third is Rayne & Delilah’s Midnite Matinee, forthcoming in 2019.

Zentner lives in Nashville, Tennessee, where he is also an Assistant Attorney General for the state.