Prior to publishing his first book, Avery was Vice-President of Yield Management for Motor Cargo, a Western regional transportation company that was acquired by UPS Freight, the Less-Than-Truckload trucking division of UPS. Avery’s first published works were short stories, which were published by periodicals including City Weekly, Gallery, Weber Studies, Utah Holiday, California Quarterly, and Mississippi Review. In 1992, he began writing nonfiction, mainly rock & rollcriticism, for CATALYST Magazine,The Event, Penthouse, and Salt Lake magazine. Interview subjects included NBA star Shaquille O’Neal, musical acts Radiohead, Freedy Johnston, Los Lobos, Tori Amos, Moody Blues, Graham Parker, and Sheryl Crow, cartoonist John Callahan, and late impresario Eugene Jelesnik. Avery's music criticism was greatly influenced by the work of Paul Nelson, whose work he'd begun reading as a teenager. Beginning in 2006, upon learning of Nelson's death, Avery spent four years researching and writing Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson, an anthology-biography compiling some of Nelson's best works while also documenting the critic's tragic life. In addition to interviewing Nelson's friends, family, and fellow critics, Avery interviewed some of the artists about whom Nelson wrote, including Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Elliott Murphy, Bruce Hornsby, Suzanne Vega, and Rod Stewart. From 2010 to 2011, Avery edited Conversations with Clint: Paul Nelson's Lost Interviews with Clint Eastwood, 1979 - 1983, compiled from interview tapes with Clint Eastwood found in Paul Nelson's apartment after his death. Critic Robert Christgau called the book, which was published eight weeks before Everything Is an Afterthought, "astonishingly thorough." In October 2016 he published his third book It's All One Case: The Illustrated Ross Macdonald Archives, editing Paul Nelson’s forty hours of interviews with detective writer Ross Macdonald. He founded Mere Words Media Relations, a boutique public relations firm that provides a full array of affordable publicity services.
Personal life
In 2005, Avery moved to New York City to pursue his writing career, and where in 2006, he got married. He now lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife Deborah Avery.
