Jesse Andrews

About Jesse Andrews

Jesse Andrews was born on September 15, 1982, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he attended Schenley High School and learned jazz before heading east to study at Harvard University. He currently lives in Berkeley, California. His family is Jewish, and his childhood experiences in Pittsburgh—its neighborhoods, its music scene, its particular brand of self-deprecating teenage humor—run through both of his novels.

Andrews's debut novel, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, was published by Harry Abrams in 2012. The story follows a high school student who befriends a classmate recently diagnosed with leukemia, told through a combination of conventional narration, screenplay format, and footnotes. It won the Cybils Award for Young Adult Fiction that year and was adapted into a feature film that Andrews himself wrote. The film premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, where it won both the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize in the U.S. Dramatic category—a rare double.

The Haters and Book Challenges

Andrews's second novel, The Haters (2016), follows three teenage musicians who escape from a jazz camp to go on an improvised road tour. Andrews has said the novel draws on his own experience with music and road travel. In 2022, The Haters was among 52 novels banned by the Alpine School District in Utah following the implementation of state law H.B. 374, "Sensitive Materials In Schools"—one of the broadest book-ban actions in the country that year. The ban drew condemnation from PEN America and free-speech advocates nationally.

Screenwriting

Beyond fiction, Andrews has become a significant presence in children's film. In addition to adapting his own debut novel, he wrote the screenplay for the adaptation of David Levithan's Every Day and co-wrote Pixar's Luca (2021) with Mike Jones. He is also writing the screenplay for Pixar's forthcoming film Hoppers. His screenwriting work has made him one of the more versatile writer-adapters working across YA fiction and animated film.