Philipp Meyer - Education

Education

Meyer attended the Baltimore City Public Schools system, including Baltimore City College High School, until dropping out at age 16 and getting a GED. He spent the next five years working as a bicycle mechanic and occasionally volunteering at Baltimore's Shock Trauma Center.

At age 20, while taking college classes in Baltimore, Meyer decided to become a writer. He also decided to leave his hometown and at 22, after several attempts at applying to elite colleges, was admitted to Cornell University. Cornell was a hughely positive experience for Meyer, who reflected that “All of the sudden I wasn’t alone, All of the sudden I had tons of friends who were doing interesting shit, who continue to do interesting shit.” During his time at Cornell, Meyer wrote a 600 page novel that he subsequently decided not to try and get published, later dismissing it as "self-indulgent undergrad nonsense" and a "complete turd". Meyer graduated Cornell with a degree in English but then took a "soul crushing" job on Wall Street to pay off his student loans, during which he composed a second novel that was repeatedly rejected for publication.

Qutting his Wall Street job halfway through the writing of his second novel, Meyer struggled on for two more years and finishing the work in progress; however, Meyer was now 30 and deeply in debt. With the new novel repeatedly rejected, Meyer moved back home to live with his parents while he applied to further MFA creative writing programs. At his lowest ebb, Meyer found himself accepted at highly esteemed and well-funded Michener Center in Austin, Texas, where he spent three years studying for his MFA. During this period, Meyer bagan composing the novel that would become American Rust, which Random House bought at the end of 2007, midway through Meyer's third year in the program prior to his graduation in 2008. During his time at the Michener Center, Meyer met fellow writer Kevin Powers, whom he would introduce to his literary agent and who would go on to write the acclaimed 2012 Iraq War novel The Yellow Birds.