Brian Van Reet is the author of Spoils, which the Wall Street Journal called “the finest Iraq War novel yet written by an American.” A U.S. Army veteran and graduate of the Michener Center for Writers, he lives in Texas with his family.

Van Reet was born in Houston and grew up there and in Maryland. Following the September 11 attacks, he left the University of Virginia, where he was an Echols Scholar, and enlisted in the U.S. Army. He served as a tank crewman in the 1st Cavalry Division, was deployed to Baghdad, and received a Bronze Star with ‘V’ device after combat actions in Sadr City.

In 2008, three years after returning from Iraq, he began publishing fiction while earning an MA in English at the University of Missouri. As a short story writer he has won the Gulf Coast Prize, was longlisted for the Sunday Times award, and has been cited in the Best American anthology. He has twice won the Texas Institute of Letters short story award. His nonfiction essays and articles have appeared in the Guardian, the New York Times, Politico, the Washington Post, and elsewhere.

He studied fiction and screenwriting at the Michener Center for Writers, where he received an MFA in 2012. His first novel, Spoils, was published in 2017, and later in four translations. In 2018 he received a Ralph A. Johnston Memorial Fellowship at the University of Texas at Austin, and taught there as a visiting professor the following year. He served as ranch manager of the Dobie Paisano Fellowship Program from 2019-24 and was also the acting director from 2022-24. When not writing he enjoys traveling, the outdoors, and spending time with friends and family.

Literary Agent: Peter Straus at Rogers, Coleridge & White

U.S. publicity email: Sabrina.Callahan [at] hbgusa.com

U.K. publicity email: AONeill [at] penguinrandomhouse.co.uk