Brady G. Stefani has a bachelor's degree in creative writing, and a graduate degree in law. During law school, he spent time as an involuntary commitment caseworker for the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, where he interacted with patients suffering from severe thought disorders, including numerous patients presenting with subjectively real memories of being visited and abducted by alien beings (commonly referred to as alien abduction phenomenon). It was through his study of these patients, along with his own struggles with anxiety and cognition, that Stefani became aware of just how deceiving, mysterious, and powerfully resilient the human mind can be. After law school, Stefani wrote and directed a feature film, The Wind Cried Larry, which received honorable mentions at the East Lansing Film Festival. In addition to working on a second YA novel that continues the storyline from The Alienation of Courtney Hoffman, Stefani continues to write YA fiction for his website, exploring issues of mental health in the context of our boundary-less imaginations.
2017 Independent Press Awards Distinguished Favorites: Science
Fiction
2017 Independent Press Awards: New Fiction (First Time Published),
Winner
2016 New Apple Annual Book Awards for Excellence in Independent
Publishing: Young Adult Science Fiction Medalist Winner
Next Generation Indie Book Awards 2016: Finalist in the First Novel
category
Readers’ Favorite Awards 2016: Finalist in Young Adult Fiction
"If you love Stranger Things, read The Alienation of Courtney
Hoffman."
—Elle magazine
"A must-read sci-fi book"
—Hypable
“Chock-full of sharp tonal contrast . . . This debut novel fuses a
serious issue—the stigma of mental illness—with sci-fi to chronicle
a girl’s unusual coming of age.”
—Kirkus Reviews
"This novel has a breakneck pace and Stefani's writing is fluid and
perfectly suited to this most extraordinary tale that blends the
coming of age, adventure, science fiction, and post-apocalyptic
genres—and it all works beautifully."
—Readers' Favorite, Five Stars
“Brady G. Stefani’s The Alienation of Courtney Hoffman finds a way
to thread together a fast-paced young adult novel feel with a
substantive agenda. Stefani’s storytelling skills and elegantly
simple language immediately get you involved in an emotional,
suspenseful, off-balance reading experience that is equal parts
drama and science fiction.”
—Ian Kahl, author of Anxiety is a Rambling Dagger, and That Faraway
Place
"Beyond our everyday world there lies the alternative reality of
childhood, a universe populated by strange beings and powered by
our collective imaginations. The Alienation of Courtney Hoffman is
a doorway for readers of all ages that returns us to that world
from which so many have become disconnected. Brady G. Stefani's
ability to connect us to that larger, weirder reality is a gift
from an ever-changing, ultimately unknowable cosmos."
—John E. L. Tenney, Paranormal Researcher
"Stefani’s The Alienation of Courtney Hoffman is a
thought-provoking and emotional journey through a young girl’s mind
as she struggles to understand who she is, where she came from, and
who she is supposed to be—all while deciphering between reality and
the tricks our minds can sometimes play on us. Stefani beautifully
demonstrates how difficult life can be for anyone who thinks or
acts a little differently, and reminds us that, more often than
not, the things that terrify us the most are the things trying to
save us."
—Jessica Stevens, author of Within Reach
“As the father of two teenage girls, I can tell you that Brady
Stefani must have some sort of supernatural helmet that helps him
think and write in their language. But The Alienation of Courtney
Hoffman is much more than a novel for teens. This fast-paced
adventure kept my attention, blazing back-and-forth from reality to
an alter-world so close by that it’s creepy. Here’s a page-turner
that captures a lot about childhood struggles through an
imaginative story filled with surprises.”
—Jim Schaefer, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and writer for the
Detroit Free Press
"Brady Stefani has written a wonderful coming-of-age tale of an
adolescent girl who is struggling to grasp what is real and what is
not real. While conveying the actual inner experience of an
adolescent is a difficult task, because of the unconscious and
incomprehensible facets of the mind, Stefani uses a scientific
metaphor to accurately convey the demands, perils, and triumphs of
adolescence that must be traversed to become an adult. With The
Alienation of Courtney Hoffman, Stefani has achieved an important
literary form that will be of interest to adolescent and adult
readers alike."
—Melvin Bornstein, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Wayne
State University, Training and Supervising Analyst at Michigan
Psychoanalytical Institute, and editor of Psychoanalytic Inquiry
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