Dave Eggers is the author of many books, among them The Eyes and the Impossible, The Circle, The Monk of Mokha, Heroes of the Frontier, A Hologram for the King, and What Is the What. He is the founder of McSweeney’s, an independent publishing company, and co-founder of 826 Valencia, a youth writing center that has inspired over 70 similar organizations worldwide. Eggers is winner of the American Book Award, the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award for Education, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the TED Prize, and has been a finalist for the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is the 2024 John Newbery Medalist, for the most distinguished contribution to children's literature for The Eyes and the Impossible. Eggers is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
See Dave Eggers’s complete bibliography.
Extended bio
Dave Eggers is the author of many books, among them The Eyes and the Impossible, The Every, The Circle, The Monk of Mokha, Heroes of the Frontier, A Hologram for the King, Zeitoun, What Is the What, and The Museum of Rain.
He is founder of McSweeney's, a nonprofit, independent publishing company based in San Francisco that produces books, a humor website, The Believer and Illustoria magazines, and a journal of new writing, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern. The magazine has been edited by a long line of brilliant editors, including Eli Horowitz, Jordan Bass, and Claire Boyle. Under their leadership, McSweeney’s has won the National Magazine Award for Fiction three times and has been a finalist nine times. The Executive Director of the McSweeney’s Literary Arts Fund, and the publisher of McSweeney’s, is Amanda Uhle.
Along with Nínive Calegari, Eggers is the co-founder of 826 National, a network of youth writing and tutoring centers around the United States. The whole thing started with 826 Valencia, their original center in the Mission District of San Francisco. Since then, over seventy other organizations, from Louisville to Toowoomba, Australia, operate with inspiration from the 826 Valencia model.
Realizing the need for greater college access for the first-gen and low-income students served by 826 Valencia, Eggers founded ScholarMatch, a nonprofit organization designed to connect students with resources, schools and donors to make college possible—and to make sure students graduate, and do so without debt. The organization was begun with the help of Miel Allegre, was grown exponentially by Diana Adamson, and is currently run by Karla Salazar. They do great work and need your help. Go here to learn more.
He is co-founder of Voice of Witness, a nonprofit book series that uses oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world. Those books are extraordinary, and we hope you will not be daunted by the words “oral history.” They are rigorous in their research, but are not at all academic or dry. They are riveting, accessible, and provide irreplaceable first-person perspectives on recent historical events. The executive director of VOW is Mimi Lok, and the managing editor is Dao X. Tran.
Eggers’s work as a journalist has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Guardian, the Believer, and the New Statesman. He has covered Trump rallies, life in Gaza under occupation, Ukraine during wartime, and the fragile peace in South Sudan. You can see some of this writing here.
Eggers’s novel What Is the What, about the life of Valentino Achak Deng, a refugee from the civil war in South Sudan, gave birth to the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation, run by Mr. Deng. VADF operates secondary schools in South Sudan. They do great work. Support them here.
Eggers’s books for young readers include What Can a Citizen Do?, Her Right Foot, This Bridge Will Not Be Gray, The Lifters, and The Wild Things, among others. All proceeds from these books go to the Hawkins Project, which distributes the funds to American literacy organizations, starting with 826 Valencia.
In 2018, Eggers co-founded The International Congress of Youth Voices, an annual gathering of 100 extraordinary young writers and activists; their landmark meeting in San Francisco resulted in a youth-written manifesto published by the Guardian.
Eggers is winner of the Newbery Medal, the American Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award for Education, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the TED Prize, and has been a finalist for the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and holds an honorary doctorate from Brown University, a college he applied to when he was 18 and from which he was roundly rejected. Eggers graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in journalism.
Trained also as a painter, Eggers’s artwork and book designs have been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, the Nevada Museum of Art, the Biennial of the Americas, the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum at the Smithsonian, and numerous other galleries and art spaces.
In the 1990s, he and some high school friends, Marny Requa and Dave Moodie, started a magazine, called Might. That magazine was featured in Dave’s memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. The other editors of that magazine were Paul Tullis and Zev Borow.
An experimental flight enthusiast, Eggers has attended the Jetpack Aviation Academy in Moorpark, California, but is not yet certified to fly off-tether.
Born in Boston and raised in Illinois, he has now lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for three decades. He is married to the novelist Vendela Vida, and they have two children.
To inquire about a speaking engagement for Dave, write to Amanda Uhle at speaking@hawkinsproject.org. Note that no personal correspondence can be answered at this address.
Dave is happy to correspond with humans, but can’t do so online. Why would any of us want to spend more time online? To write a letter to Dave, mail it to 849 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA 94110. To receive a reply, please include your own mailing address. (You’d be surprised at how many people forget to include their mailing address.)
A NOTE FOR TEACHERS AND LIBRARIANS AND STUDENTS
Dave is not on the road that much these days, but he loves hearing from readers. getting mail and will answer your letters through the United States Postal Service. Every day, students from every age, kindergarten to PhD-level, write to Dave, asking questions and such, and he always writes back. Whole classes sometimes send packets of letters, and opening a package like that is one of the best things that can happen to anyone. So feel free to get in touch this way. Letters can be sent to 849 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA 94110.
