Zayd Ayers Dohrn was born underground and raised in New York City. His new book DANGEROUS, DIRTY, VIOLENT, AND YOUNG was published on May 19, 2026. It was just named a New York Times “Editor’s Choice” and one of the “Best Books of 2026” in The New Yorker. It was recently featured as a BookBrowse First Impressions book and received rave reviews from our members.
Zayd’s plays have been produced across the country and internationally. His punk/hip-hop musical REVOLUTION(S), featuring the music of Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Tom Morello, recently had a twice sold-out run at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre. His Crooked Media podcast MOTHER COUNTRY RADICALS reached Top 10 on Apple Podcasts and won the duPont-Columbia Journalism Award and the Prize for “Best Audio Storytelling” at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Zayd holds degrees from Brown, BU, Columbia, and NYU, and was a Lila Acheson Wallace Fellow at Juilliard. He is the Daniel Hale Williams Professor and Director of the MFA in Writing for the Screen + Stage at Northwestern University.
Please join me in welcoming Zayd to the BookBrowse Community Forum. As a reminder, to reply to an existing comment, click the grey Reply on the right side under the comment. To ask a new question, click the blue Reply button a little lower down.
Zayd: Thank you so much for agreeing to chat with us. Is there anything you’d like to add to the bio above before we jump into the Q&A?