Neal's talents range from film directing (two short films he directed won him the coveted CINE Golden Eagle Awards) to writing music and stage plays – including book and lyrical contributions to “American Twistory,” which is currently playing in Boston. His books have received many awards from organizations such as the International Reading Association, and the American Library Association, as well as garnering a myriad of state and local awards across the country. As a full-time writer, he claims to be his own hardest task-master, always at work creating new stories to tell.

In the years since, Neal has made his mark as a successful novelist, screenwriter, and television writer. Within a year of graduating, he had his first book deal, and was hired to write a movie script.

After spending his junior and senior years of high school at the American School of Mexico City, Neal went on to UC Irvine, where he made his mark on the UCI swim team, and wrote a successful humor column. Only one of them will be chosen as a scythe's apprentice and as Citra and Rowan come up against a terrifyingly corrupt Scythedom, it becomes clear that the winning apprentice's first task will be to glean the loser.Īward-winning author Neal Shusterman grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where he began writing at an early age. Citra and Rowan are teenagers who have been selected to be scythes' apprentices, and despite wanting nothing to do with the vocation, they must learn the art of killing and understand the necessity of what they do. In a world where disease, war and crime have been eliminated, the only way to die is to be randomly killed ('gleaned') by professional scythes. A dark, gripping and witty thriller in which the only thing humanity has control over is death.

Scythe book series