J.R. Potter is the award-winning author and illustrator of the Thomas Creeper mystery series about a reluctant thirteen-year-old mortician's apprentice turned detective for the dead. The novel won the 2019 Kraken Prize for Middle Grade Fiction. Thomas Creeper and the Purple Corpse, the sequel to Potter's debut, was shortlisted for the 2023 Stoker Award for Young Adult Fiction.

 

His graphic novel work has been published by Image Comics, and his short fiction has been collected in various speculative fiction anthologies. His third novel for teens Ragtag: City of Ash and Fire, a cyberpunk fairy tale, hit shelves in early September 2023. When not writing about ghosts with vendettas or teenage heroines navigating American wastelands with jet packs, Potter writes and illustrates fiction for educational publishers Pioneer Valley Books and Heinemann Publishing, helping boost literacy, empathy, and wonder in schools across the world.

 

And when he's not doing any of these fun things, he's writing and playing music, another early love. His recent solo record "Love Manifesto" can be streamed on Spotify and Apple Music along with two records with his partner Amy in their Americana band The Crooked Angels.