Colin Asher is the author of The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music, and Never a Lovely so Real: The Life and Work of Nelson Algren, a literary biography written as a work of creative nonfiction. Both of his books were New York Times Editors' Choice selections, and they have received raves in the New York Times Book Review, The New York Review of Books, the New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly and Booklist, among others. 

Born in Morgantown, WV, and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Colin dropped out of high school and spent a decade in California, working as a bike messenger, stocking shelves in a warehouse, and driving a truck. Eventually he started working in homeless services, then enrolled in the City College of San Francisco. He received a Bachelors of Science from Northeastern University, and a Master of Arts from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Despite the fact that he wrote a book about musicians, Colin has no musical talent – but that didn't stop him from spending one of the best years of his life playing in a band with Spencer Ackerman.

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Colin is represented by Alison Lewis at the Frances Goldin Literary Agency.

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