Jerry Vanschaik

Jerry Vanschaik is America’s premier coffee novelist, perhaps because he is the only one! He has written two full-length novels with titles too coffee-centric for most: "Tripio" (2019) and "The Trier: A Week in the Life and Death of a Coffeehouse" (2023). Jerry does not write how to brew, where to buy and why coffee books. He writes about how coffee unites us, affects us and directs us.

Jerry began his career in coffee during the late 1980s. He has done everything in the coffee business from throwing 132-pound bags of green coffee off the back of a semi . . . to throwing drunken customers out of his pioneering Starbucks store in Chicago. As a result, he is able to create worlds where coffee is nearly a living character and not a trendy plot affectation.

Writing has always been a type of meditative practice for Jerry. He began journaling after leaving college and keeps a journal to this day. In order to keep his mind in a place of energized calm so that he can sit down to write, Jerry does yoga, meditates, the aforementioned journaling, reads, and tries not to take it all too seriously. His four young adult children make sure of that.

Jerry left the coffee business behind him but still starts the day with a double espresso.