B.T. Gottfred

Plays and films came before the novels. B.T. Gottfred wrote and directed a comedy about men and women that ran for four years in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, and made four feature films, among them The Movie Hero, which took the audience award at the Austin Film Festival. Forever for a Year (Henry Holt, 2015) was his first book, alternating in short, diary-like chapters between Carolina Fisher, a hopeful high school freshman, and Trevor Santos, a bored transfer student from California landed in an Illinois school. The Nerdy and the Dirty (2016) uses the same two-voice method for Penelope Lupo, who hides who she really is behind a popular boyfriend, and Benedict Pendleton, as cerebral and socially clumsy as the bestselling self-help author who is his father. Reviewers divided sharply over how candid both books are about adolescent life. Gottfred co-founded the production company Bold Soul Studios with Corey Moss and lives in Los Angeles with his family.