Adam McDaniel grew up in Connecticut and New Jersey. He attended New York's Vassar College, winning honors at various festivals for his student film work and receiving the college's academic film & cinematography prize upon graduation. He also wrote and directed a stageplay that had the misfortune of opening the same night as an on-campus Billy Joel concert.

Drawing since an early age, he is largely a self-taught artist with no formal training. While in high school, his artwork won several local and regional art competitions, but when we went to Vassar, he dropped out of studio drawing after the very first day of class. Upon the recommendation of an upperclassman, he turned to theatrical set design as a creative alternative.

McDaniel has gone on to serve as a technical director and set designer for several theatrical stage shows, and as a production designer and cinematographer for independent films and documentaries. After moving to southern California in late 1996, he has worked with such companies as Big Ticket Television, Revolution Studios, several divisions of Ascent Media, as well as Columbia College Hollywood.

He currently works in southern California within the field of post production for TV and film, and does freelance illustration and writing in his spare time.

McDaniel is the author of the book How To Succeed in Heaven Without Really Dying, and is currently co-writing Chasing Echoes Through the Dark with author Daniel James Wessler. His first screenplay, Heaven Spent, was featured by entertainment website Aint It Cool News as one of the best "undiscovered" scripts of 2000. It was also a second place winner at Words From Here's Third Annual Screenplay Competition.