William P Young Books in Order

William P. Young was born on May 11, 1955, in Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada. He is Canadian by birth, but much of his childhood unfolded far from Alberta, an experience that shaped his interest in belonging, pain, faith, and the search for home.

Young spent much of his first decade in the highlands of what was then Netherlands New Guinea, now West Papua, where his missionary parents lived among the Dani people. He learned their language and became deeply connected to the community before being sent to boarding school at age six.

When his family returned to Western Canada, his father served a number of small churches. Young changed schools often, attending thirteen by the time he finished high school. He later paid his way through Bible college as a radio disc jockey, lifeguard, and oil-field worker in northern Alberta.

He earned a degree in religion from Warner Pacific College in Portland, Oregon, graduating summa cum laude in 1978. The following year, he married Kim Warren, worked on a church staff while attending seminary, and took on whatever work could help support their growing family.

Those jobs included insurance, construction, telecommunications, food processing, contract work, and business ventures. All along, Young wrote songs, poems, short stories, newsletters, and business material, mostly for friends and family rather than a public audience.

Then Kim asked him to write something that would put his thoughts about God and healing in one place for their six children.

That request became The Shack, a novel Young initially made as a Christmas gift. He printed just fifteen copies, but friends encouraged him to share it more widely. The book spread through word of mouth, reached the top of bestseller lists in 2008, and was later adapted into a 2017 film.

Young followed it with books that keep asking big spiritual questions through story and conversation. Cross Roads follows a hard-driving businessman facing the damage he has done. Eve revisits the Creation story through a young woman whose survival opens a larger question about human relationships. In Lies We Believe About God, his first nonfiction book, Young takes on twenty-eight assumptions about God, suffering, religion, identity, and love.

His books make room for hard questions.

Young has described a family life centered on Kim, their six children, grandchildren, and a wide circle of friends. The work still begins from the same personal place as The Shack: a willingness to talk plainly about hurt, grace, and the hope that people can change.