Kilgore, Evan 1983–

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Kilgore, Evan 1983–

PERSONAL:

Born December 5, 1983, in Los Angeles, CA; son of Dave and Leigh Kilgore. Ethnicity: "Caucasian." Education: University of Southern California, B.F.A., 2006.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Los Angeles, CA. E-mail—evan@evankilgore.com.

CAREER:

Novelist and screenwriter. Former software designer, entertainment industry story analyst, and film and television assistant. Creator of the online game "The Asylum."

MEMBER:

Mystery Writers of America.

AWARDS, HONORS:

University of Southern California Trustee Scholar.

WRITINGS:

Who Is Shayla Hacker?, Bleak House (Neenah, WI), 2007.

The Children of Black Valley, Bleak House (Neenah, WI), 2008.

SIDELIGHTS:

"Twin Peaks meets The Da Vinci Code in this surpassingly weird debut," said a writer for Kirkus Reviews in describing Evan Kilgore's debut novel, Who Is Shayla Hacker? With five protagonists, an abundance of coincidences, and an ever-present threat of danger, the book dispenses with many hallmarks of the classic whodunit. Individuals from numerous walks of life—a high school student, an almost-retired cop, a female construction contractor, and a newly married man—find themselves obsessed in different ways with Shayla Hacker, the elusive MacGuffin at the heart of the story. In pursuing the mystery, the characters meander from Los Angeles to Cairo, Rio de Janiero, and Three Rooks, Indiana. The result is a novel "that is better than its summaries make it sound," according to David Pitt in Booklist. Eventually the main characters' paths unite, and they come to understand that their shared quest for Shayla Hacker is really a journey of self-discovery.

Kilgore, who started his career as a computer programmer while he was in high school, began writing novels as child growing up in Tacoma, Washington. Enthralled since his youth by stories such as The Lord of the Rings, he says inspiration has never been a problem for him. "There are stories absolutely everywhere," he told an interviewer for the online journal Front Street Reviews, "people and places want to tell stories. You just have to look for them." He studied filmmaking and screen writing at the University of Southern California, where he graduated in 2006.