Jeff Zentner

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Jeff Zentner

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Michael Ondaatje, Jesmyn Ward, Anthony Doerr, Cormac McCarthy, Mohsin ...more

Member Since
June 2007


Jeff Zentner lives in Nashville, Tennessee. He came to writing through music, starting his creative life as a guitarist and eventually becoming a songwriter. He’s released five albums and appeared on recordings with Iggy Pop, Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Thurston Moore, Debbie Harry, Mark Lanegan, and Lydia Lunch, among others.

Now he writes novels for young adults. He became interested in writing for young adults after volunteering at the Tennessee Teen Rock Camp and Southern Girls Rock Camp. As a kid, his parents would take him to the library and drop him off, where he would read until closing time. He worked at various bookstores through high school and college.

He speaks fluent Portuguese, having lived in the Amazon region of Brazil for two y
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Jeff Zentner I went to Goodreads. I read the one-star reviews.
Jeff Zentner Great question! To write the three, I essentially split my personality into thirds and gave each character a third to hold.

To Dill, I gave my sense …more
Great question! To write the three, I essentially split my personality into thirds and gave each character a third to hold.

To Dill, I gave my sense of the world—its beauty, my struggles with faith, my love for music, and my struggles with feeling like external forces defined me.

Travis got my nerdiness for the things I love, a ferocious loyalty to friends, and a desire to live a courageous life.

Lydia got my sense of humor and desire to leave my mark on the world.

All three are some of me; none are all of me.

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Average rating: 4.17 · 38,460 ratings · 8,970 reviews · 7 distinct worksSimilar authors
The Serpent King

4.17 avg rating — 18,293 ratings — published 2016 — 44 editions
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Goodbye Days

4.13 avg rating — 12,204 ratings — published 2017 — 29 editions
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In the Wild Light

4.58 avg rating — 3,310 ratings — published 2021 — 13 editions
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Rayne & Delilah's Midnite M...

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Faithful and Virt...
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The Tiger's Wife
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Jeff’s Recent Updates

Jeff Zentner is now friends with Carriann Cook
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Hummingbird by Natalie Lloyd
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If I picked the Newbery Award, it would be this book right here. It’s a masterpiece of middle grade. I cried no fewer than three times while reading. If you trust my opinion at all, read it.
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Dark Room Etiquette by Robin Roe
Dark Room Etiquette
by Robin Roe (Goodreads Author)
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My blurb for this book:

DARK ROOM ETIQUETTE is an utterly harrowing, enthralling, and ultimately hopeful exploration of survival and the journey of recovery from trauma. This book will make you think, but more importantly, it will make you feel.
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In the Wild Light by Jeff Zentner
In the Wild Light
by Jeff Zentner (Goodreads Author)
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Every book I write is a love story.

The first question I ask myself when I start work on a new novel is this: what do you love?

This time the answer was: standing in rivers, floating on rivers, reading poems, writing poems, audacious journeys with frie
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Grace and the Gravy Pirates by Aaron Cushley
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This is one of my favorite--if not my favorite--books about gravy
Jeff Zentner rated a book it was amazing
The Gospel of Winds by Jeff Zentner
The Gospel of Winds
by Jeff Zentner (Goodreads Author)
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This is a little digital poetry chapbook I created as a free gift for people who buy IN THE WILD LIGHT from Parnassus Books in Nashville or Reading Rock Books in Dickson, Tennessee. You can still get it if you buy IN THE WILD LIGHT from one of those ...more
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Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
Cloud Cuckoo Land
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Battle of the Bands by Lauren Gibaldi
Battle of the Bands
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I have a story in this, but it’s still an excellent book.
Jeff Zentner added a status update: My new book, IN THE WILD LIGHT is out today! If you enjoyed my other books, you might just enjoy this one. If you’ve never read one of my books, this might be a good place to start!
More of Jeff's books…
“If you're going to live, you might as well do painful, brave, and beautiful things.”
Jeff Zentner, The Serpent King

“Nothing makes you feel more naked than someone identifying a desire you never knew you possessed.”
Jeff Zentner, The Serpent King

“For the most part, you don't hold the people you love in your heart because they rescued you from drowning or pulled you from a burning house. Mostly you hold them in your heart because they save you, in a million quiet and perfect ways, from being alone.”
Jeff Zentner, Goodbye Days

Topics Mentioning This Author

“If you're going to live, you might as well do painful, brave, and beautiful things.”
Jeff Zentner, The Serpent King

“What you call pride, I call courage.”
Jeff Zentner, The Serpent King

“She's it. She's my everything. She's the standard by which I'll judge beauty for the rest of my life. I'll measure every touch to her breath on my skin. Every voice to her voice. Every mind to her mind. My measure of perfection. The name carved into me. If I could, I would lie with her under these stars until my heart burst.”
Jeff Zentner, The Serpent King

“Writing is something that you can learn only by doing. To become a writer, you need an imagination, which you clearly have. You need to read books, which you clearly do. And you need to write, which you don't yet do, but should.”
Jeff Zentner, The Serpent King

“So when I watch trains, it makes me think about how much movement there is in the world. How every train has dozens of cars and every car has hundreds of parts, and all those parts and cars work day after day. And then there are all these other motions. People are born and die. Seasons change. Rivers flow to the sea. Earth circles the sun and the moon circles Earth. Everything whirring and spinning toward something. And I get to be part of it for a little while, the way I get to watch a train for a minute or two, and then it's gone.”
Jeff Zentner, The Serpent King




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Dezbah Armajo Thanks for accepting my friend request - but also have an early Merry Christmas to you and your family may also have a Happy New Year.


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