Jared Klickstein

Jared Klickstein was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1989 to heroin-addicted parents. He spent his teenage years outside of Oakland, California after being adopted by his aunt and uncle. He attended UC Santa Cruz where he got addicted to heroin himself, dropped out, and spent nearly ten years chronically homeless and addicted around the country. After a notorious run on Skid Row in Los Angeles and a subsequent jail sentence, he sobered up in 2018, wrote Crooked Smile, and currently resides in Oakland, California. He works as an independent journalist.