Photo: Sabra Embury.

Award-winning young adult author and screenwriter Ned Vizzini died Thursday, December 19, in New York City.  He was 32. According to the LA Times, the NYC medical examiner is reporting the cause of death as suicide. Vizzini had been open about his bouts of depression and his lauded 2006 book, It’s Kind of a Funny Story (Disney-Hyperion), is a fictionalized account of his time in a Brooklyn hospital’s  psychiatric ward. The novel was named 2007 Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association and one of the 100 Best Ever Teen Novels by NPR. A film version of the book was made in 2010 with Keir Gilchrist in the main role. Alessandra Balzer, co-publisher at Balzer + Bray (an imprint of HarperCollins), calls Vizzini a “brilliant, insightful writer and a dazzling storyteller.” Balzer served as editor for Vizzini’s debut book, Be More Chill (Disney-Hyperion, 2005), which he wrote while a student at City University of New York's Hunter College. “He created characters who were outsiders trying to find their way, and he did it with such humor and empathy,” says Balzer.  “Ned's books will be read and beloved for generations to come.” Vizzini regularly spoke at schools and book festivals, and developed friendships with numerous librarians over the years. "I remember when Ned visited my eighth graders to talk about Be More Chill and his experiences as a young author,” Jennifer Hubert Swan, middle school librarian at Manhattan’s Little Red School House/  Elisabeth Irwin High School (LREI), tells School Library Journal. “He was honest, charming, and encouraging, and by the end of his presentation, all the students in the room were ready to pen their first novel. His books are still enormously popular and his exuberant writing voice will be sorely missed. What a great loss." Ellen Rubin, retired school librarian from Wallkill High School, first met Ned Vizzini when he agreed to be a part of the "Fiction 2 Film" panel discussion with Rachel Cohn and Jarrett J. Krosoczka at the April 2011 Empire State Center for the Book Festival in Albany, NY. “He was easy to get to know and delightful,” she tells SLJ.  He later spoke to her students at her school. Rachel Cohn, author of Beta (Disney/Hyperion, 2012), tells SLJ that Vizzini “wrote with remarkable depth, intelligence, kindness, and humor—qualities he himself had. He was quirky, kind, and intense.  His passing is a huge loss for our community. His star burned bright and inspired so many readers and writers.” Vizzini was born Edison Price in Brooklyn on April 4, 1981, and was known as “Ned."  He was described as a “wunderkind” and at 15, while attending New York City's competitive Stuyvesant High School, he began contributing to the New York Press, a free independent newspaper, and won the Scholastic Arts & Writing Award in 1996. At 17, he was asked to write a piece for the New York Times Magazine, and at 19, he published Teen Angst? Naah...(Free Spirit, 2000), a memoir of his experiences at Stuyvesant. At the time of his death, he was living in California with his wife Sabra Embury, a writer for L Magazine, and their son. He recently co-wrote  two episodes of MTV’s Teen Wolf series and served as a story editor on Shawn Ryan’s short-lived ABC drama Last Resort. In 2013, House of Secrets debuted; it was the first in a middle school series that he coauthored with filmmaker Chris Columbus. SLJ, in its review at the time of publication, said the book’s characters “are plucky, quick thinkers whom readers will grow to love.” The film version of the book was due to begin principal photography in January 2014, with the second book in the series set to be released on March 24, 2014.