Josh Swiller is an author, advocate, and unabashed friend of trees.
My new novel Bright Shining World recently won the 2021 Green Earth award. Learn more about it and my other writings here.
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Photo by Heather Ainsworth
A darkly funny thriller about one young man’s attempt to unravel the mysterious phenomenon affecting students in his new town, as he finds a way to resist sinister forces and pursue hope for them all.
To be alive in this world right now is to be worried for this world. Corruption, suppression, warming, floods and fires…it can be overwhelming! How do we continue to fight? To stay engaged?
Growing up deaf, alone in the hearing world, i was challenged to answer these questions of resilience and relationship every day. Understanding others required dedication and open hearts. It could never be taken for granted. It guided me to special people and places. And to an appreciation for how deep connections nourish and heal and inspire us in the fight to make a better world.
Bright Shining World is a thriller, an existential mystery, a love story, a family story, a buddy comedy — and an attempt to carry these lessons forward.
What People Are Saying
Bright Shining World is a unique and wonderful gut-punch of a novel. Weird yet relatable, dead serious yet hilarious, timeless yet all-too-timely, devastating yet infinitely hopeful. Our scary complicated world needs this bright shining book.
— Lance Rubin
Author of Crying Laughing and Denton Little’s Deathdate
Bright Shining World is brilliant, stunning, and wonderful. [I]t's the best book I've read this year. I absolutely loved it. Wallace's narration is a master class in voice. Bright Shining World is laugh-out-loud funny, and simultaneously heart-wrenching and lovely, full of lines that give readers moments to consider the wonder of what Josh Swiller can compact into a single biting sentence. And what teeth this story has! Just…wow!
— Andrew Smith
Author of Grasshopper Jungle
Darkly humorous…a strong narrative voice loaded with acerbic jokes... [T]here’s a surprisingly effective moral about the ability of young people to implement change and the importance of focusing on climate issues.
— Bulletin
