Ben H Winters

Early life and education

Winters was born in Maryland. In high school, he played in the punk band Corm, alongside John Davis, now of Title Tracks. In 1998, he graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was active in the comedy group Mama's Pot Roast.

Career

Winters was first known as the author of the 2009 New York Times bestseller Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. In June 2010, Android Karenina was published by Quirk Books. A young adult novel, The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman, was published by HarperCollins in September 2010. Finkleman was nominated for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America in January 2011. In 2011, Winters published a second book in the Ms. Finkleman series, titled The Mystery of the Missing Everything, and Bedbugs, a horror novel for adults. Winters has also written numerous books in the Worst-Case Scenario Series.

In 2012, Winters published The Last Policeman, the first in a trilogy of detective novels set in a pre-apocalyptic United States; that book won the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America in the category Best Paperback Original; was an Amazon Best Book of 2012; and was nominated for the Macavity Award for Best Mystery by Mystery Readers International. The second novel in the Last Policeman trilogy, Countdown City, was published in July 2013; it won the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award for Distinguished Science Fiction. The third book in the Policeman series, World of Trouble, was published in July 2014. It was nominated for the Edgar Award in the category of Best Paperback Original and for the Anthony Award.

Winters's work for the theater includes the Off-Broadway musical Slut, the children's musicals The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, Uncle Pirate, and A (Tooth) Fairy Tale and the Neil Sedaka juke-box musical, Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.

Winters's most recent novel is Underground Airlines, published by Mulholland Books in July 2016. It is an alternate history book, set in a present-day alternate universe in which the American Civil War never occurred, with human chattel slavery continuing to be practiced legally in four U.S. states as a result. In the book, the main character, a former slave and bounty hunter working for the U.S. government, attempts to infiltrate an abolitionist organization known as the "Underground Airlines" (a reference to the historical Underground Railroad). The book was an Indie Next pick for July 2016 and a New York Times bestseller. The book won the 2016 Sidewise Award for Alternate History.

Personal life

Winters lives in Los Angeles with his wife and three children.

Recognition