KEMBLE SCOTT is the bestselling author of the novels The Sower and SoMa.
He started writing fiction when he moved to San Francisco in 1997 and wanted to capture the outrageous behavior he witnessed in his new neighborhood, South of Market (SoMa). After writing dozens of these tales, he created a home for them online by launching the e-zine SoMaLit, SoMa Literary Review, with co-editor Jon Stuber. The site quickly attracted the work of other emerging Bay Area writers and amassed a readership of as many as two million hits per year.
Some of Kemble’s short stories later inspired his debut novel SoMa. Released by Kensington Books in 2007 it was the first novel launched with videos on YouTube. The videos, coupled with the support of independent booksellers in Northern California, helped SoMa hit the San Francisco Chronicle bestsellers list its first week in stores, and eventually the novel reached number four on that list. SoMa also became the number one bestseller in June 2007 in the Doubleday Book Club’s InsightOutBooks division. In June 2008 SoMa was honored as a finalist for the national Lambda Literary Award for debut fiction.
In May 2009 Kemble released his second novel, The Sower. His decision to premiere the new novel as an exclusive e-book received media coverage around the world when it became the first novel sold by tech start-up Scribd.com. In August 2009 the first print edition became available when Numina Press published The Sower in hardcover. For the print launch of The Sower Kemble restricted in-store sales of the first editions to independent bookstores, the longtime supporters of his work who he called “the cultural curators” of the literary world.
Kemble is also the editor the weekly literary newsletter THE LIT GUIDE. An alumnus of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Kemble has three Emmy Awards for his work in television news. He lives in San Francisco.