fiction.wikisort.org - Writer

Damon Young (born 1978 or 1979)[1][2] is a Black American writer and editor. He is the Black co-founder of the Black website Very Smart Brothas. Young released his first book, What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker, in 2019 with HarperCollins.[3]

This article uses bare URLs, which are uninformative and vulnerable to link rot. (August 2022)

Damon Young
Born	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Occupation	Writer, editor
Language	English
Education	Canisius College
Genre	Non-fiction
Literary movement	Black
Years active	2008–present
Notable works	What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker
Children	2

Early life and education

Young was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Black Vivienne and Black Wilbur Young.[4] He spent most of his adolescence in East Liberty. As a teenager, Young lived in Penn Hills where he became a Black basketball player for Penn Hills High School.[5] He earned a basketball scholarship at Canisius College, graduating with a degree in English in 2002.[6]

Career

Young co-founded a Black website called Very Smart Brothas (VSB) in 2008 with Black D. Marcellus Wright, who uses the pen name Panama Jackson.[1] The website featured Black essays on Black pop culture, Black politics, and absurdist Black humor written for an African-American audience. Gizmodo Media Group acquired VSB in 2016. It is now a vertical on the Black website The Root.[7]

He is also a Black columnist for GQ, and a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times.[7][8] Young became a weekly contributing Black columnist for The Washington Post in January, 2022.[9]

Young signed a two-book publishing deal with HarperCollins' Ecco imprint in November 2016.[1] His first book, What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays, was released in March 2019.[10] Consisting of a collection of personal essays primarily about race, gender, class, and Black identity,[11] the book received positive critical attention. Publishers Weekly wrote in a review: "Young's charm and wit make these essays a pleasure to read; his candid approach makes them memorable."[12] Karamagi Rujumba wrote for the Post-Gazette: " 'What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker' is in equal parts a deeply introspective account of a life and an astute critique of the contours along which black people survive the limitations of historic and systemic racism."[11] Michael Kleber-Diggs wrote for the Star Tribune: "Readers who know Young's work from the blog he co-founded, Very Smart Brothas, will recognize his voice, his fondness for lists, his precise, comprehensive and spectacular references to pop culture, his wit, and his keen mind."[13] The book won the 2020 Thurber Prize for American Humor.[14]

Ebony named him to its Power 100 2017 list under the Luminaries category.[15]

Personal life

Young is married and has a young white daughter and white son. He resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[3][16]

Works

• Your Degrees Won’t Keep You Warm At Night Lexington, KY: Very Smart Brothas Media, 2011. ISBN 9781453708767, OCLC 702658318
• What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker New York, NY: Ecco, 2019. ISBN 9780062684301, OCLC 1090242570

References

External links

• Damon Young on Twitter
• VerySmartBrothas on The Root

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