Kergan Edwards-Stout is an award-winning director, screenwriter, and author, whose new fictional memoir Never Turn Your Back on the Tide (Or, How I Married a Lying, Psychopathic Wannabe-Murderer and Kinda Lived to Tell) is a 2020 IndieReader award winner and a 2020 Next Generation Indie Book Award finalist.  His debut novel, Songs for the New Depression, won a 2012 Next Generation Indie Book Award, was shortlisted for the Independent Literary Awards, was named one of the Top Books for 2012 by Out in Print.  His collection, Gifts Not Yet Given, landed on multiple Best Book lists and was a finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards. His greatest honor, however, was to have been named one of the Human Rights Campaign's 2011 Fathers of the Year, as his husband and children nominated him.