Adam Joseph Goebel III was born in 1980 in Henderson,
Kentucky, a small town on the Ohio River across from
Evansville, Indiana. His parents, Adam Joseph Goebel Jr.of Louisville, and Nancy Bingemer Goebel of Henderson, were both social workers and met in Frankfort. His older sister CeCe is also a social worker.

Goebel attended Brescia University in Owensboro,
Kentucky, where he received an English degree with an
emphasis in professional writing. He received an MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University in Louisville. Before becoming a published author, he was a musician (guitarist and vocalist--see music page), a screenwriter (has written five screenplays), a horse racetrack employee, and a record reviewer.

MacAdam/Cage Publishing of San Francisco published Goebel's first book THE ANOMALIES in April of 2003.
THE ANOMALIES was a Book Sense 76 title selected by
the nation's independent booksellers and was nominated
for the Kentucky Literary Award.

Goebel's second novel, TORTURE THE ARTIST, was released in October of 2004, also by MacAdam/Cage. TORTURE THE ARTIST was the finalist for the 2004 Kentucky Literary Award.

In fall of 2005, TORTURE THE ARTIST was published in German under the title VINCENT by Diogenes Verlag, a Swiss literary publisher. Goebel attended the Frankfurt Book Fair, and he and VINCENT were featured in DER SPIEGEL, the German equivalent to TIME or NEWSWEEK.

In the fall of 2006, Goebel was sent on his first book tour. The tour included stops in Amsterdam, Vienna, Hamburg, Munich, and Zurich. Since he was promoting THE ANOMALIES (retitled FREAKS for the German release), most of Goebel's events on this tour were held in punk rock clubs. 2006 also saw VINCENT winning the Jury of Young Readers Prize in Vienna and the long-listing of TORTURE THE ARTIST for The Dylan Thomas Prize.

Since the success of his first two novels in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, Goebel's works have seen publication in ten different languages.

In May of 2007 Goebel married Micah Williams of Murray, Kentucky. The two live in Henderson.

COMMONWEALTH, Goebel's longest novel, was released on July 4, 2008.