Discover the Best Books Written by Scott Snyder

Scott Snyder is an American author. He is known for his 2006 short story collection Voodoo Heart and his work for DC Comics, including series such as American Vampire, Detective Comics, a highly acclaimed run on Batman, Swamp Thing, and Justice League, as well as the company-wide crossover storylines "Dark Nights: Metal" and "Dark Nights: Death Metal." He has also written creator-owned comics published through Image Comics, including Wytches, Undiscovered Country, and Nocterra.

Snyder has garnered critical acclaim from critics and fans for their work, such as his run on the New 52 version of Batman that debuted in 2011, and has won numerous industry awards, including two Eisner Awards, a Harvey Award, and a 2012 Eagle Award for Best Writer. At the age of nine, Snyder attended a summer camp where one of the counselors read Stephen King's Eyes of the Dragon to him over the summer, an experience that Snyder says "really jump-started my love of story-telling." 

He was also influenced by the writing of Denis Johnson, Raymond Carver, Rick Bass, Joy Williams, Elizabeth McCracken, Stephen King, Tobias Wolff, and George Saunders. In comics, he has named Alan Moore and Frank Miller as his favorite writers. Snyder graduated from Brown University in 1998 with a degree in creative writing and then worked at Walt Disney World for about a year. He initially worked as a custodian, but after he injured his shoulder and started to have some problems with his co-workers, he auditioned and worked as some of the characters. 

Snyder's Disney World stint strongly influenced his writing; he later recalled, "it did a world of good for my writing ... All the things I ended up writing about, those things that are deeply frightening to me—fear of commitment and growing up, fear of losing loved ones, the wonder and terror of falling in love—all of it was constantly being played out all around me in this weird, cartoonish, magnified way at Disney."

Snyder's first collection of stories, Voodoo Heart, was published by the Dial Press in June 2006. The collection received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist and was a Kirkus Reviews "Hot Debut" of the year. The New York Times published a positive review by author Andrew Sean Greer in the Sunday Book Review.

Stephen King picked two of the included stories—"Wreck" and "Dumpster Tuesday"—for the 2007 Best American Short Stories anthology shortlist. Voodoo Heart was shortlisted for The Story Prize in 2006. In 2008, Snyder wrote a short story called The Thirteenth Egg for the anthology Who Can Save Us Now? Brand-New Superheroes and Their Amazing (Short) Stories.

In 2009, Snyder began writing for Marvel Comics. His first foray into the genre was a one-shot focusing on the first Human Torch, part of Marvel's 70th-anniversary celebrations. He later wrote the four-issue miniseries Iron Man: Noir, which debuted in April 2010.

By the late 2000s, Snyder had taught writing at New York University, Columbia University, and Sarah Lawrence College. Snyder has a wife named Jeanie and two sons named Jack and Emmett. On March 3, 2019, Snyder announced that they were expecting another child in May. Their child, a son named Quinn, was born on May 4, 2019.