Brad Kessler

Brad Kessler (born 1963) is an American novelist. His most recent work is 2009's Goat Song.[1]

Brad Kessler is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Birds in Fall which won the 2007 Dayton Literary Peace Prize [2] Part of Birds in Fall[3] was previously published in the Spring 2006 The Kenyon Review.[4] and was named one of the best ten books of 2006 by the Los Angeles Times. He is the recipient of the 2008 Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a 2007 Whiting Award, as well as awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the 2002 Lange-Taylor Prize, in collaboration with photographer Dona Ann McAdams, awarded by Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies. His other books include the recently released (2009) Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese, a work of literary non-fiction, and the 2001 novel, Lick Creek.

Kessler's essays and articles have appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, New York Times Magazine, among others, as well as in The Kenyon Review. He is the author of several award-winning children’s books. In an interview related to his non-fiction book Goat Song, Kessler noted: "I started as a journalist, but I always wanted to write fiction."[5] He has taught at The New School in New York City and in the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles.

He lives on a farm in Vermont with the photographer Dona Ann McAdams. Kessler and McAdams collaborated on the 2001 book The Woodcutter's Christmas, with Dona providing fourteen black and white photographs to accompany Brad's story.