Three arrests into his violent spiral, sixteen-year-old Jacob Soloway is one bad decision away from a prison cell. Instead, a judge gives him a final shot at redemption: a year at The Forge—a military academy designed to break individuals and rebuild them into new cadets.

Thrown into C Company, Jacob enters a world of relentless discipline, unpredictable violence, and boys as angry and directionless as he is. But as unlikely friendships deepen, Jacob learns that growing up is less about obedience than finding the strength to do what’s right and keep moving forward—one hard-earned mile at a time.

Andrew Erkkila is a former Gila Hotshot with four seasons of fire experience. He has fought fire in most of the western U.S. In 2011, he was honored with the S.W.E.A.T. Award (Superior Work Ethic and Teamwork). 

 He graduated from the MFA program at Rutgers-Newark. He received a 2026 Individual Artist Finalist Award from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.  His work has been published in Prairie Schooner, The Master's Review, New Orleans Review and was listed as a finalist in the 2019 Zoetrope All-Story Screenplay Contest judged by Francis Ford Coppola and as a finalist in the Missouri Review’s 2019 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize. His work has also been featured on the Great New American Essays podcast and optioned for television. 

He is adjunct faculty at the The College of New Jersey and Rutgers-Newark Writing Program.