Scott Snyder | |
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Born | New York City, New York, United States |
Occupation | Writer |
Genre | Fantasy, horror, superhero fantasy |
Scott Snyder is an American writer. He is known for his 2006 short story collection Voodoo Heart, and his comic book writing, including American Vampire, Detective Comics, Batman, Batman: Gates of Gotham and Swamp Thing.
At the age of nine, Snyder attended a summer camp where one of the counselors read Stephen King's Eyes of the Dragon to him over the summer, an experience that Snyder says "really jump-started my love of story-telling." He was also influenced by the writing of Denis Johnson, Raymond Carver, Rick Bass, Joy Williams, and George Saunders.
Snyder graduated from Brown University in 1998 with a degree in creative writing, and then worked at Walt Disney World for about a year. He initially worked as a custodian, but after he injured his shoulder and started to have some problems with his co-workers, he auditioned and worked as some of the characters. Snyder's Disney World stint strongly influenced his writing; he later recalled, "it did a world of good for my writing ... All the things I ended up writing about, those things that are deeply frightening to me—fear of commitment and growing up, fear of losing loved ones, the wonder and terror of falling in love—all of it was constantly being played out all around me in this weird, cartoonish, magnified way at Disney."
Snyder received his MFA from Columbia University in 2002.
His first collection of stories, Voodoo Heart, was published by the Dial Press in June 2006. The collection received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist, and was a Kirkus Reviews "Hot Debut" of the year. The New York Times published a positive review by author Andrew Sean Greer in the Sunday Book Review.