LOSER*: A Survival Guide to High School Popularity
Winner of the 2026 IndieReader Discovery Awards in Humor, Nonfiction
What’s the book’s first line?
“High schoolers are method actors.”
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
All the girls I had crushes on in high school.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
I was with my seven-year-old daughter at McDonald’s and I saw a young couple who looked like they were on a date, and I thought to myself, “who would ever go on a date at McDonald’s, what a trashy thing to do.” Then I remembered, “ohh I did that.” I took my first homecoming date to McDonald’s on the night of the homecoming dance. And I thought, that would be a funny essay. I sat down to write that essay, but decided that story would make more sense if I backed up and talked about the girl I dated for two weeks beforehand. And that story would make more sense if I talked about the girl I invited to go on a church ski trip, and I just kept backing up until I started with the time I kissed the neighbor girl on her driveway before starting kindergarten. It turns out a had a full book’s worth of awkward stories about girls I wanted to make out with.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
Our high school and adolescent years are so excruciatingly awkward that most of us just try to forget about it. We’re embarrassed by the person we were and the dumb stuff we did. But by blocking out all of those years, we forget some of the lessons those years taught us and we don’t realize how much we’ve grown. It makes it harder to be empathetic to adolescents going through those same growing pains because we can only see how stupid they’re acting. We forget how difficult it is to sort through all of those mixed messages during that stupidly dumb time. This book tries to place the reader back in that frame of mind, but with the benefit of hindsight and a lot more perspective. Also, there are a lot of stories about a fiberglass cow.
When did you first decide to become an author?
I’m still not sure I’ve decided to do that.
Is this the first book that you’ve written?
Yes. Unless you count my college graduate project titled “The Effect of Sample Dimensions on the Corresponding Compressive Strength Between Concrete Cores and Standard-Cured Molded Cylinders.” That one’s a real page-turner.
What do you do for work when you’re not writing?
I do sales for a construction company and teach at the University of Nebraska-Omaha as an adjunct professor. I also have way too many kids who have way too many problems they don’t know how to solve.
How much time do you generally spend on your writing?
All of it now that Stranger Things is over.
What’s the best and the hardest part of being an indie?
Having people say “wow you wrote a book!” and then say “oh.” when you tell them you self-published. Which really means, “oh I guess it probably sucks.”
What’s a great piece of advice that you can share with fellow indie authors?
You probably shouldn’t make your book designer re-do the interior layout three times. They really hate that.
Would you go traditional if a publisher came calling? If so, why?
Yeah, because I’m a massive sell-out who’s just in it for fame.
Is there something in particular that motivates you (fame? fortune?)
Yeah, fame and fortune are really great. I also just bought a Charizard card that has eluded me since I had one stolen from me in the fifth grade. Righting that injustice was really motivating.
Which writer, living or dead, do you most admire?
I really like C.S. Lewis, which you can probably guess. I don’t agree with him as much as I once did, but he had this super power of making impossibly complicated things sound really simple. I also really like David Sedaris and Michael Lewis. They are both so freaking observant and can make anything hilarious and fascinating.
Which book do you wish you could have written?
Are you allowed to say the Bible? That thing has sold a ton of copies.