Jake Coburn

Jake Coburn was born in New York City in 1978. He grew up on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and attended several different prep schools. In 2000, he graduated from Brown University magna cum laude with a degree in Modern Culture and Media.

Jake’s first novel, Prep (Dutton, 2003), is based on his teenage years, where he witnessed New York’s privileged offspring form some of the city’s most vicious street gangs. Prep was named an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults and a Junior Library Guild selection, and is currently being made into a movie by Paramount-MTV Films and Benderspink.

While Prep has drawn critical comparisons to S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders and J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, it is Jake’s unique writing style that has captured reviewers. Booklist writes, “The staccato rhythm of Coburn's prose is the best part of this tale of Manhattan prep-school gangsters . . . Realistic, slang-filled dialogue and short, crisp narrative passages create a minimalist world of frenetic gang warfare, substance abuse, and wild parties that become nightmares.” School Library Journal writes, “Coburn's brief sentences and often-raw gang slang create a cadence and reflect the movement of the novel through four suspenseful days.”

Jake’s second novel, LoveSick (Dutton, Sept. 2005), also named an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults, is based on his college years and his recovery from alcohol and drug addiction. Jake writes, “When I started LoveSick, I wanted to write a love story about two teenagers trying to survive addiction, loneliness, and their freshman year of college.”

Praised as a “classic love story” by Amy Gray (SpyGirl) and a “must read” by Koren Zailckas (Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood), LoveSick impressed reviewers with its unflinching look at self-destructive teens. Publisher’s Weekly writes, “Coburn's wrenching descriptions of Ted and Erica's mindsets in the throes of their addictions make for the book's strongest moments;” Booklist declares, “Coburn’s writing skill is evident in his almost sensual descriptions of Erica’s bingeing rituals;” and The Bulletin states that “[Ted’s] struggle to stay sober in college will make readers long to reach into the pages and befriend this lonely and troubled guy.”

Jake is repped by Elaine Markson at Elaine Markson Literary Agency, Ted Miller at CAA, and Dave Brown at Benderspink.

Jake currently lives in Los Angeles, California, and can be reached at [email protected].