So You Wanna Know about This Guy . . .
Me too, friend. Here’s what I know so far:
My name is Reinhardt Suarez, and I’m a writer, editor, raconteur, and karaoke junkie based out of the Twin Cities area in Minnesota.
I’m originally from Chicago. Yeah, the Windy City. Big Chicago Bulls fan—that’s what you get when you grow up in Jordan country during the GOAT’s heyday. I grew up more or less in a “normal” neighborhood doing “normal” things, which for me, was riding bikes, playing video games and Dungeons & Dragons, and assembling a complete run of Uncanny X-Men. That’s what you did in the 80s—all that stuff on Stranger Things? Yeah, that was real.
Of course, nerd stuff wasn’t cool back then. It was decidedly uncool. So, unfortunately, I wasn’t exactly picked first in gym class for kickball (even though I kicked a mean ball back in my day). Whatever. I wanted to make stories. First as a comedian (found out I wasn’t funny), then as a movie director (found out I break electronics by touching them), and finally as a writer (found out I could kinda write . . . kinda).
So I ended up studying creative writing in college (much to the chagrin of my Asian parents who still think I eat cardboard for sustenance) and then again in a Master in Fine Arts program at The New School in New York City. I originally enrolled there to pursue that amazing untapped source of wealth that is avant-garde experimental short fiction, but through chance and fate (and the insistence of David Levithan) wound up a YA writer.
After some adventures and some crazy misadventures, I’ve wound up here in Minneapolis, where I currently live and work, sometimes as a teaching artist at the Loft Literary Center in downtown Minneapolis when time permits. You can find more of my writing in monthly reviews and occasional special features done for the American Library Association’s Booklist Online.
Now that you know the basics, what do I want from you?
Um, nothing. I mean, sure—ostensibly this is an author’s website, and I suppose a large reason it exists is to get people to know about and buy my books. But if that’s not your cup of tea, I’m cool with that. Different strokes and all. I’m honestly just glad you stopped by and encourage you to stick around (via the blog or via the newsletter) to see what’s happening from time to time.
Actually, that’s not true.
Okay, fine. There’s one thing I’d love for you to do. Go out and live. Like, get off the Internet—away from social media and Netflix and all that—and get together with real people in real places and do real things. Treat your time as precious—the most precious thing in the universe—and make sure it counts toward illuminating your understanding of the world and making immediate positive differences to the people you’re hanging with. And let me know those stories, because I kinda live for them. I for sure will try to share some with you.