FEATURED AUTHOR: ZACHARY RYAN

ABOUT THE BOOK

For a group of friends, one mistake changed the course of their lives forever.

In the aftermath of a tragic school shooting, the group must find their own form of justice and a way to begin healing from a wound that just won’t stop hurting.

For them, the lines were drawn.

Right and wrong became blurred.

Friends became enemies.

Told from the perspective of four friends, we learn how one student’s revenge reigned terror over a school and a community-- causing secrets to unfold and relationships to be tested.

A compelling and powerful story about a school shooting. A must read.

Book Details:


Title: Silent Screams


Author’s name: Zachary Ryan


Genre: young adult, coming of age


Publisher: Kingston Publishing, (June 29, 2020)


Print length: 265 pages

LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT WITH ZACHARY RYAN

Things you need in order to write: my journal, a clean apartment or workspace, MUSIC, and my laptop.
Things that hamper your writing: apps on my phone. I’ll be in the middle of writing a chapter, and I’m like let me look at an app. Usually it takes me 20-30 minutes to write a chapter. Then it takes me an hour because I get so distracted. 


Things you love about writing: being able to escape my mind and be able to go into this different world. I get to avoid my problems for a while and make see how other people live even if I make the characters up.
Things you hate about writing: editing. I hate it. I will always hate it. I know it necessary, but I can’t stand it.


Easiest thing about being a writer: being able find something I’m insanely obsessed with. It makes me get up in the day knowing I have something that I love to do. 

Hardest thing about being a writer: getting your work out there. Making people believe that your work is worth reading.

Things you love about where you live: I live in Chicago, and I think it’s the greatest city. We have nature if we feel the city could be too much. I have the city for when I want to be around so many groups of people.
Things that make you want to move: I wish we didn’t have so much traffic. I used to live in the country where I could walk around barefoot and just enjoy nature. I can’t do that in Chicago.


Things you never want to run out of: office supplies. I have a weird obsession with office supplies.
Things you wish you’d never bought: furniture. I keep buying furniture, and it keeps breaking— especially our dinning room tables. It’s the worst. 


Words that describe you: loud, friendly, loyal, and funny.
Words that describe you but you wish they didn’t: stubborn, irrational, loud.

Favorite foods: my dad’s pasta, my grandmother’s porkchops, and my mother’s meatloaf.
Things that make you want to throw up: seafood; sushi.

Favorite song: "Chasing After Something" by Mia Carruthers. Also, anything Kelly Clarkson.
Music that make your ears bleed: rap, death metal.

Favorite beverage: Propel Water. 

Something that gives you a pickle face: grapefruit juice.

Favorite smell: Home Depot or Lowes or fresh cut grass.

Something that makes you hold your nose: Asiago cheese.

Something you’re really good at: writing and entertaining guest. 

Something you’re really bad at: Being quiet and, according to my husband, dancing. 


Something you wish you could do: sing.
Something you wish you’d never learned to do: college science. Never needed it after college.

Something you like to do: drink with friends. 

Something you wish you’d never done: sky dive (hate heights).

People you consider as heroes: my dad (I know, corny). 

People with a big L on their foreheads: arrogant people that are full of themselves. I just watched a documentary of a music producer, and they named dropped left and right. I’m like oh my god, you’re full of it. 



Last best thing you ate: there’s a place in downtown Annapolis that has the best lemon chicken pasta. 
Last thing you regret eating: wings from this to-go place because it was the worst wings I’ve ever had. The breading was too too soggy.

Things you’d walk a mile for: a bottle of whiskey, an open floor plan home, JB Alberto’s pizza.
Things that make you want to run screaming from the room: having to sing karaoke.

Things you always put in your books: the idea to be open with people and be true to yourself. 

Things you never put in your books: supernatural elements.

Things to say to an author: "Love your work, it helped me get through some tough times in my life," and "I really hated this character."

Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: "You should never have been a writer," and "Who even thought this was worth publishing?"

Favorite places you’ve been: Maine!!

Places you never want to go to again: a place in Wisconsin where we stayed for a wedding. I thought we were going to get murdered the whole time.

People you’d like to invite to dinner: Kelly Clarkson, Lana Del Rey, Logan Lerman.

People you’d cancel dinner on: I’ll keep this blank because it would be a very long list.

Favorite things to do: writing, drinking, binge watching Housewives. 

Things you’d run through a fire wearing gasoline pants to get out of doing: I’m going to get all of hell for this: watching Friends. I don’t get why people like the show.

Things that make you happy: being with close friends and my husband. 

Things that drive you crazy: When my apartment isn’t clean.

Most embarrassing moment: I once popped myself in an elevator. 

Proudest moment: when I moved to Chicago.

Biggest lie you’ve ever told: I think the weirdest was that I took an African dance class one time when I was drunk. 

A lie you wish you’d told: Honestly, I don’t know.

Best thing you’ve ever done: write Silent Screams because it was my 50th novel. 

Biggest mistake: staying in a relationship because I was too stubborn to admit that it wasn’t working out.

Most daring thing you’ve ever done: proposed to my husband while drink holding a box of leftover pasta. 

Something you chickened out from doing: Coming out to my parents sooner.

The last thing you did for the first time: got married to my husband.

Something you’ll never do again: be straight.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Zachary Ryan grew up in a black-and-white box in Maryland, before moving to Chicago to start a new life. There, he found that he was accepted for his misfit status—and learned that it's perfectly normal to spend your twenties feeling lost and confused.



After a disastrous sexual encounter, Ryan stumbled on a group of true friends, or "soul cluster," that he connected with. Through his writing, he hopes to help other broken souls out there find comfort amid the chaos.



Buy the book:
Amazon  |  Amazon author page