About Jeff Schnader
Jeff Schnader is an author of fiction, living in Norfolk, Virginia. His first novel, THE SERPENT PAPERS, a short-listed finalist in the Blue Moon Novel Competition, was published by The Permanent Press in January 2022.
His short story, THE CHAMPION, won 1st Prize in the 2020 Annual Quills Contest of the League of Utah Writers. He does consultations for other authors to provide authentic medical scene-writing in novels and scripts.
In 1972 he was at Columbia University where he participated in sit-ins, marches, and protests against the Vietnam War. He took part in demonstrations in front of Hamilton Hall where students were beaten by the N.Y. City Tactical Police Force in full battle regalia. Such was the genesis for his novel, THE SERPENT PAPERS. He is currently writing another novel about a dramatist in 16th Century England.
As a physician, he became a full Professor in 2005 and has won teaching awards. He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University, Wright State University, and Eastern Virginia Medical College. As an Editorial Board Member for many years of a peer-review medical journal, he was made Departmental Editor and was recognized by the journal for exemplary editorial service.
He has authored fifty scientific publications and has chaired and spoken at hundreds of national scientific conferences, expert panels, and symposia. He was a regular on NPR Station WMUB’s Sound Health as a guest expert, answering medical questions from the public while live on the air.
Where to find Jeff Schnader
The Serpent Papers
J-Bee, the son of a military officer, is raised in a violent milieu during the 1960s. After his little brother is persecuted by bullies, J-Bee commits a retaliatory act of brutality, the nature of which scars him.
When his best friend, Gilly, volunteers to fight in Vietnam, J-Bee–repulsed by his own violence–refuses to follow either his father or Gilly into the military. Instead, he matriculates at Columbia in 1971, an era of counterculture, drugs, sex, and rock ‘n roll, in order to seek his redemption.
While there, he is introduced to the mysterious Serpent who recites in the campus café, and to the politically active Margo who schools him in anti-war politics and the virtues of peace.
Although he feels loyalty to his best friend fighting overseas, he increasingly sympathizes with Margo’s rationale against the war.
Torn between supporting the war or protesting against it, J-Bee’s paradoxical feelings are ignited when his friend Gilly, on furlough from Vietnam, visits him at Columbia.
With ratcheting tensions and bullhorns leading students in protest, pro-war and anti-war factions collide in campus riots, and J-Bee makes the choice that defines his life.