Wendig grew up in New Hope, Pennsylvania. He studied English and religion at Queens University of Charlotte and graduated in 1998. After working various odd jobs and publishing early works under the name C.D. Wendig and C. David Wendig, he became a full-time freelance author writing under the name Chuck Wendig.

Wendig’s first short story collection, Irregular Creatures, was published in January 2011.

In November 2011 followed Wendig’s debut novel, Double Dead, published by Abaddon Books as part of its shared-world series Tomes of the Dead. Bad Blood, a sequel novella, was published in May 2012. The books were later collected as The Complete Double Dead, released in February 2016.

Shotgun Gravy, a young adult novella following Atlanta Burns, described as “Veronica Mars on Adderall,” was self-published by Wendig in 2011. Wendig ran a successful Kickstarter campaign during February 2012 to publish Bait Dog, a follow-up novel to Shotgun Gravy, raising $6,800, more than twice the goal. Bait Dog was self-published in 2012, and was later acquired along with Shotgun Gravy by Amazon Skyscape, and republished as Atlanta Burns in January 2015. The second book in the Atlanta Burns series, The Hunt, was published in February 2016.

Wendig participated in the Evil Hat Productions Kickstarter, which raised money for a trilogy of novels penned by Wendig based on the Spirit of the Century RPG game. After a successful campaign, he went on to release Dinocalypse Now in 2012 and Beyond Dinocalypse in 2013. Though slated to write the third (and final) volume of the Dinocalypse trilogy, Dinocalypse Forever, Wendig was unable finish the novel due to other commitments and was replaced by novelist Carrie Harris.

The first novel in Wendig’s Miriam Black series, Blackbirds, features a girl who can see the death of anyone she touches. It was published in April 2012 by Angry Robot Books. It was followed by a sequel, Mockingbird, in August 2012. Also from Angry Robot, Wendig released The Blue Blazes in May 2013, the first novel in a new urban fantasy series following Mookie Pearl. The third book in the Miriam Black series, The Cormorant, was published in December 2013.

For Abaddon, he also penned Unclean Spirits, out in May 2013, the first installment of the Gods and Monster series.

In July 2013, Skyscape launched Wendig’s new young adult dystopian “cornpunk” trilogy, starting with Under the Empyrean Sky. It was followed by a sequel in July 2014, called Blightborn. The Heartland trilogy concluded in July 2015 with The Harvest.

Wendig has run his blog Terribleminds since 2000, where he dispenses regular writing advice. Much of his writing advice has been collected in his self-published e-books or his book The Kickass Writer, published in 2013 by Writer’s Digest Books.

Wendig was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2013.

The Miriam Black books were optioned as a television series by Starz in 2014, to be developed by John Shiban, writer and producer of Breaking Bad and The X-Files, with a writers’ room already set up. Wendig announced on his blog in November 2015 that Starz was no longer developing the adaptation.

In October 2014, Saga Press bought six books in Wendig’s Miriam Black series, including the first three novels, previously published by Angry Robot Books. The first three books, Blackbirds, Mockingbird, and The Cormorant were re-published with new covers in 2015. Thunderbird, book four, followed in 2017, with The Raptor & The Wren and Vultures, books five and six, published in 2018 and 2019 respectively.

A short story titled “The Wind Has Teeth Tonight” was released in 2014 and takes place between the first and second book.

In October 2015, Wendig re-released The Blue Blazes, as well as self-publishing a sequel, The Hellsblood Bride, after contract disputes with previous publisher Angry Robot. He has stated that a third book, possibly titled A Sky Born Black or The Skyborn Bane might someday be published, should the first two books do well or be picked up by a publisher. However, Wendig said the first two books stand alone and a third book is not necessary to conclude the story.

It was announced in March 2015 that Wendig would write the flagship Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens novel, titled Star Wars: Aftermath, to be published in September 2015. The book was the first in a trilogy of new canonical Star Wars novels published by Del Rey, bridging the gap between Return of the Jedi and the new Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens. It was followed by Aftermath: Life Debt (2016) and Aftermath: Empire’s End (2017). Wendig’s involvement with the books came after asking to write a Star Wars licensed novel on Twitter on September 4, 2014. He was approached by LucasBooks in New York Comic Con later that year, after seeing his tweet and reading his novel Under the Empyrean Sky. Aftermath was published exactly a year later, on September 4, 2015, and debuted at #4 on both The New York Times Best Seller list and the USA Today’s best seller list. Aftermath was subject to controversy for its inclusion of a gay man as a lead character.

August 2015 saw the publication of Zer0es, a cyber-thriller from HarperVoyager. Invasive, a novel set in the same world as Zer0es that takes place after the events of the book, was published in 2016.

In 2015, Archie Comics announced a new comic series written by Wendig and Adam Christopher, featuring a new version of their superhero The Shield.

Wendig was chosen in October 2015 as the writer of new Marvel ongoing comic book series Hyperion, based on the version of the character that appeared in Jonathan Hickman’s run on Avengers, alongside artist Nik Virella.

A bridging novelette titled “Interlude: Swallow” was released in 2015 in the anthology Three Slices, featuring work by Wendig, Delilah S. Dawson, and Kevin Hearne. It takes place between the third and fourth book.

During the ComicsPRO 2016 annual meeting, Marvel Comics announced a five-issue comic book adaptation of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, written by Wendig and illustrated by Luke Ross, launching in June 2016.

Collected as The Complete Double Dead in February 2016 by Abaddon Books.

During the 2018 New York Comic Convention in early October 2018, Wendig announced that he would be writing a five-issue story arc with Marvel Comics entitled Shadow of Vader, which was set to begin in November 2018. The series would have explored the legacy of Darth Vader on the galaxy. Wendig was also slated to write an unannounced Star Wars book. On October 12, it was reported that Marvel had fired Wendig for unknown reasons. It was presumed the firing was the result of Wendig’s social media posts. His firing resulted in the Shadow of Vader story arc being pulled from Marvel Comics’ schedule.