The Rest of the World — Adam Schwartz

Adam Schwartz's debut collection The Rest Of the World introduces a writer whose ear is so pitch-perfectly trained to his characters it seems as if he's an angel eavesdropping from their rooftops. His cast heralds from every walk of life, from street corners and housing projects from dive bars and fishing boats we might otherwise drown out with the noise of our lives, and he listens to them with a gigantic heart. In a literary world where we're warned by some to stay in our lanes and others who bemoan the airlessness of autobiography, his work is refreshing fearless, and like a subway's third rail, hums with electricity. This collection won the 2020 Washington Writers' Publishing House Fiction Award. Schwartz has an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis. For over two decades, he has taught high school in Baltimore City.