Charles Benoit

A former high school history teacher in Rochester, NY, Charles has also taught in Kuwait and Trinidad & Tobago. His debut novel, Relative Danger, was nominated for both an EdgarTM (Mystery Writers of America) and a Barry Award (Mystery Scene Magazine), the Independent Publishers Association named it Mystery/Suspense Novel of the Year, and it received a Glyph Award for Best Fiction (Mystery) from the Arizona Book Publishers Association. Publishers Weekly called his second book, Out of Order, “a spicy quest tale in an India at once modern and ancient,” while The Denver Post noted, “it’s the kind of book Alfred Hitchcock would have filmed.” His third adult mystery, Noble Lies, is a post-Tsunami missing person adventure that earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly, which said, “Benoit is at the top of his game…a rough and rollicking story of adventure and romance." Noble Lies was also a short-list finalist for the Book of the Year Award (Mystery Division) from ForeWord Magazine. In 2007, Charles was selected to participate in the Authors in the Bush program, working with students and teachers in the remote Tikigaq community of Point Hope, Alaska. His creative writing earned him a Communicators Award for The Smart Set, a weekly radio program that he hosts on Jazz 90.1/jazz901.org. In August 2010, Harper-Collins will publish Charles’ first young adult novel, You. (“In this downward-spiraling story, Charles Benoit creates a closely observed slacker version of A Separate Peace for now, a time when the young are out of reach of adults but not of each other.”—Richard Peck, Newbery Medallist, author of A Long Way from Chicago) Charles works as a Senior Copywriter and Producer for Dixon Schwabl, a marketing, advertising and public relations firm, and frequently teaches creative writing workshops around the county. He and his wife, Rose, a high school English teacher, live in Rochester, NY.