David-Matthew Barnes is the bestselling author of fifteen novels, three collections of poetry, seven short stories, and more than seventy stage plays that have been performed in three languages in twelve countries. He writes in multiple genres, primarily young adult, romance, thriller, and horror. To date, he has written six produced screenplays, including the award-winning Dutch film Wagon. His literary work has appeared in over one hundred publications including The Best Stage Scenes, The Best Women's Stage Monologues, The Best Men's Stage Monologues, The Best 10-Minute Plays, 105 Five-Minute Plays for Study and Performance, and several collections in the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series. For his work, he has received the Hart Crane Memorial Poetry Award, the Carrie McCray Memorial Literary Award for playwriting, the Slam Boston Award for Best Play, and two Elly Awards for playwriting from the Sacramento Area Regional Theatre Alliance. He was named a finalist for the Sundance Institute - YouTube New Voices Lab. He is a Pushcart Prize nominee. He was nationally selected to serve as the Emerging Writer-in-Residence at Pennsylvania State University. He graduated with honors from Oglethorpe University in Atlanta with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and English. He earned a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at Queens University of Charlotte in North Carolina. He is a graduate of the Professional Program in Screenwriting at UCLA. He lives in Sacramento, California.