Josh Silver (born 15 September 1989) is a British author.^[1] He is a former actor and mental health nurse.^[2] His debut novel, HappyHead, the first in a dystopian^[3] duology of young adult fiction books (published by Oneworld Publications in the UK),^[4] was shortlisted for the 2024 YA Book Prize,^[5] nominated for the 2024 Carnegie Medal for writing^[6] and named an Amazon Best YA book of 2023.^[7] The sequel, Dead Happy, was published in the UK on 2 May 2024.^[8][9] The series will be published by Delacorte at Penguin Random House in the USA in autumn 2024.^[10] The screen rights were acquired by actor Taron Egerton and Range Media Partners in a highly competitive auction^[11][12] pre-publication. Silver's third YA book, TraumaLand, a standalone psychological thriller, will be published in May 2025. ^[13]

Silver grew up on a farm in the Lake District and moved to Manchester when he was a teenager.^[14] He attended RADA at the age of 17. After appearing on Broadway (the Royal Shakespeare Company's adaptation of the Hilary Mantel books^[15] Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies), and in the West End (notably alongside Nicole Kidman in Photograph 51),^[16] he later retrained as a mental health nurse and began writing at the same time.