Novels | Blog | Bio | Events
Schneider’s first novel, Blue Bossa (Viking), based loosely on the life of jazz trumpeter Chet Baker and set primarily in the Bay Area in the mid seventies, was a Barnes and Noble Discover Book and a finalist for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize in First Fiction.
Secret Love (Viking), his second novel, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Set in San Francisco in 1964, Secret Love tells the story of a white attorney, Jake Roseman, who leads civil rights actions around town.
Schneider’s third novel, Beautiful Inez (Crown/Shaye Areheart), is a prequel to Secret Love and set two years earlier. Its primary focus is Inez Roseman, Jake’s wife, a violinist in the San Francisco Symphony.
In Schneider’s new novel, The Man in the Blizzard (Three Rivers), set in present day Minneapolis and Saint Paul, pothead private investigator Augie Boyer discovers a plot to kill three abortion doctors, against the backdrop of the Republican National Convention. The novel will be published ahead of the September convention, on August 5, 2008.
Bart Schneider is the father of two children, Simone, 21, and Anton, 17. He divides his time between Saint Paul and Sonoma.
Bart Schneider was born and raised in San Francisco, where his father was a violinist with the San Francisco Symphony. He received a B.A. from St. Mary’s College in Moraga, and an M.A. in creative writing, with an emphasis in poetry, from San Francisco State University. He began writing plays in the late 1970’s and had a number produced in Bay Area theaters before moving to Minnesota in 1983 to work at the Playwright Center in Minneapolis. In 1986, he became the founding editor of Hungry Mind Review, a national book and culture magazine, which he edited for fifteen years. In 2001, Schneider became the literary director of the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. The following year he founded the literary-culture magazine, Speakeasy, which he edited until its demise in 2006.