Damon Young (born 1978 or 1979) is an American writer and editor. He is the co-founder of the website Very Smart Brothas. Young released his first book, ''What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker'', in 2019 with

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...

Early life and education

Young was born in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

, to Vivienne and Wilbur Young. He spent most of his adolescence in East Liberty. As a teenager, Young lived in

Penn Hills Penn Hills is a township with home rule status in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 41,059 as of the 2020 census. Penn Hills is the second-largest municipality in Allegheny County, after Pittsburgh. History In 178 ...

where he became a basketball player for

Penn Hills High School Penn Hills High School is a public secondary school located in Penn Hills, east of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is the sole high school operated by the Penn Hills School District. In the 2018–19 school year, enrollment was reporte ...

. He earned a basketball scholarship at

Canisius College Canisius College is a private Jesuit college in Buffalo, New York. It was founded in 1870 by Jesuits from Germany and is named after St. Peter Canisius. Canisius offers more than 100 undergraduate majors and minors, and around 34 master's ...

, graduating with a degree in English in 2002.

Career

Young co-founded a website called Very Smart Brothas (VSB) in 2008 with D. Marcellus Wright, who uses the pen name Panama Jackson. The website featured essays on pop culture, politics, and absurdist humor written for an African-American audience.

Gizmodo Media Group Gizmodo Media Group was an online media company and blog network formerly operated by Univision Communications (now TelevisaUnivision) in its Fusion Media Group division. The company was created from assets acquired from Gawker Media during its b ...

acquired VSB in 2016. It is now a vertical on the website ''The Root''. He is also a columnist for '' GQ'', and a contributing opinion writer for

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

. Young became a weekly contributing columnist for

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

in January, 2022. Young signed a two-book publishing deal with

' Ecco imprint in November 2016. His first book, ''What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays'', was released in March 2019. Consisting of a collection of personal essays primarily about race, gender, class, and Black identity, the book received positive critical attention. ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...

'' wrote in a review: "Young's charm and wit make these essays a pleasure to read; his candid approach makes them memorable." Karamagi Rujumba wrote for the ''Post-Gazette'': " 'What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker' is in equal parts a deeply introspective account of a life and an astute critique of the contours along which black people survive the limitations of historic and systemic racism." Michael Kleber-Diggs wrote for the ''

Star Tribune The ''Star Tribune'' is the largest newspaper in Minnesota. It originated as the ''Minneapolis Tribune'' in 1867 and the competing ''Minneapolis Daily Star'' in 1920. During the 1930s and 1940s, Minneapolis's competing newspapers were consolida ...

'': "Readers who know Young's work from the blog he co-founded, Very Smart Brothas, will recognize his voice, his fondness for lists, his precise, comprehensive and spectacular references to pop culture, his wit, and his keen mind." The book won the 2020 Thurber Prize for American Humor. ''

Ebony Ebony is a dense black/brown hardwood, coming from several species in the genus ''Diospyros'', which also contains the persimmons. Unlike most woods, ebony is dense enough to sink in water. It is finely textured and has a mirror finish when pol ...

'' named him to its Power 100 2017 list under the Luminaries category.

Personal life

Young is married and has a young daughter and son. He resides in

Works

* ''Your Degrees Won’t Keep You Warm At Night'' Lexington, KY: Very Smart Brothas Media, 2011. , *''What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker'' New York, NY: Ecco, 2019. ,

References

External links

Damon Young
on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

VerySmartBrothas
on ''The Root'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Young, Damon 1979 births Living people African-American writers Canisius College alumni 21st-century American writers American editors Writers from Pittsburgh 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people