Damon Young

Damon Young (born December 30, 1978) is an American writer and editor. He is the co-founder of the blog Very Smart Brothas. Young released his first book, What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker, in 2019 with HarperCollins. He spent most of his adolescence in East Liberty. As a teenager, Young lived in Penn Hills where he became a basketball player for Penn Hills High School. He earned a basketball scholarship at Canisius College, graduating with a degree in English in 2002.

Career Young co-founded a website called Very Smart Brothas (VSB) in 2008 with D. Marcellus Wright, who uses the pen name Panama Jackson.

He is also a columnist for GQ, and a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. Young became a weekly contributing columnist for The Washington Post in January, 2022.

Young signed a two-book publishing deal with HarperCollins' Ecco imprint in November 2016. Consisting of a collection of personal essays primarily about race, gender, class, and Black identity, the book received positive critical attention. Publishers Weekly wrote in a review: "Young's charm and wit make these essays a pleasure to read; his candid approach makes them memorable." Karamagi Rujumba wrote for the Post-Gazette: " 'What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker' is in equal parts a deeply introspective account of a life and an astute critique of the contours along which black people survive the limitations of historic and systemic racism." The book won the 2020 Thurber Prize for American Humor.

Ebony named him to its Power 100 2017 list under the Luminaries category.

Personal life Young is married and has a daughter and son. He resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Works Your Degrees Won’t Keep You Warm At Night Lexington, KY: Very Smart Brothas Media, 2011. , What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker New York, NY: Ecco, 2019. , That's How They Get You: An Unruly Anthology of Black American Humor New York, NY: Pantheon, 2025.