Terry Trueman is a poet-turned-novelist who hit the ground running with his debut young adult novel, Stuck in Neutral, an inside view of a teen suffering from cerebral palsy. The winner of a 2001 Michael L. Printz Honor award, that novel secured for its author overnight success in the world of young adult fiction. Trueman, whose own son has severe cerebral palsy, enjoys writing about things close to his own life. "I'm not one of these writers who's interested or necessarily capable of great flights of the imagination," Trueman noted in an Achuka.com interview. "I'm not interested in a story about an earthworm on the third moon of Neptune. I don't know how guys do that, and I don't enjoy reading them. My models as a writer are Charles Bukowski and Raymond Carver, who both wrote truthful prose. Their line is straight and direct."

Born in Birmingham, Alabama...