Blake Nelson is an American author of adult and children's literature.[1][2] He grew up in Portland, Oregon, and attended Wesleyan University.
Nelson began his career writing short humor pieces for Details magazine in the mid-nineties. These articles, with titles like "How to Date a Feminist" and "How to Live on $3600 a year", explored the slacker west coast lifestyle.
His first novel Girl was excerpted in Sassy Magazine in three successive issues.[3] The mail Sassy received in response was key to the eventual publication of Girl.[4] It has since been published in eight foreign countries and made into a feature film, Girl. It was reissued as a Young Adult novel by Simon Pulse in October 2007.
Nelson's novel Paranoid Park[5] was made into a film of the same name by Gus Van Sant. The book won the prestigious Grinzane award in Italy.[6] The film won a special 60th Anniversary prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007.
His latest novel Dream School, was released in December of 2011 and is the sequel to his first novel Girl. It follows Andrea Marr to Wellington college.
The Seattle Stranger called Dream School "The missing link between Bret Easton Ellis and Tao Lin."