“By using novels, I show ordinary kids confronting and overcoming great odds.” ShowsKidsNovelOrdinaryOvercomingOddsConfronting Author:Lurlene McDaniel
“Maybe I would have become an actor. I was a very outgoing kid, but being in the hospital - being outside of social action for so long - turned me into an observer. Actually, right after I got out of the hospital, I did start writing a novel, but the book was so transparently about me that I stopped.” WritingLongBookKidsActionActorsSocialNovelHospitalsObserversOutgoingSocial Action Author:Brent Runyon
“As a kid I wanted to write science fiction, and I was never without a book. Later I really got into being a scientist and never thought I'd be writing novels.” WritingBookKidsWantedFictionNovelScientistScience Fiction Author:Daniel H. Wilson
“I am always amazed by the novel angles that people come up with for kids' Christmas books. Even if a family is not religious, who could resist, say, "Olive, the Other Reindeer," about Olive the dog who thinks the song refers to her and heads for the North Pole to help Santa out?” PeopleIfsThinkingBookHelpingKidsSongReligiousNovelDogCome UpAmazedAngleSantaOlivesNorth PoleReindeer Author:Jabari Asim
“Oh, my God. What if you wake up some day, and you're 65 or 75, and you never got your novel or memoir written; or you didn't go swimming in warm pools or oceans because your thighs were jiggly or you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid? It's going to break your heart. Don't let this happen.” PeopleIfsHeartBigsHappensKidsImaginationSpaceBreakNovelCreativeNiceWrittenOceanComfortableWake UpWarmMemoirRadicalStaringWhat IfSwimmingPoolPerfectionismThighsBreak Your HeartJuicyCreative LifeSillinessPleasing PeopleStaring Into Space Author:Anne Lamott
“Back in high school, I wrote a novel about a character named Bart Simpson. I thought it was a very unusual name for a kid at the time. I had this idea of an angry father yelling "Bart," and Bart sounds kind of like bark - like a barking dog.” KindIdeasCharacterKidsSchoolFatherNamesSoundNovelDogHigh SchoolAngryUnusualBarkYellingBarking DogsUnusual NamesBart Simpson Author:Matt Groening
“I have sat with the mothers who have lost addicted sons. I have sat with families of kids who have been killed in drug-related gang violence. I have been to the prisons. I have seen the effects. At some point in time, I felt I had to do something other than write a novel about it, that I needed to try to make some sort of contribution, at least try to make some sort of difference in the real world.” WorldWritingTryingHas BeensRealKidsMotherLostFeltDifferencesNovelViolenceEffectsSonNeededDrugPrisonSatRelatedContributionReal WorldGangGang Violence Author:Don Winslow
“I was a serious comic collector and fanboy as a kid. I wanted very badly to draw comic books for a lot of my childhood and early adolescence. So when you have an unfulfilled dream like that, when years later you find yourself in a position to make a graphic novel - hell yeah, I'm going to do that.” YearsBookDreamKidsWantedNovelHellChildhoodPositionSeriousDrawsYeahComicFinding YourselfAdolescenceComic BookGraphicCollectorsGraphic NovelsUnfulfilled DreamsHell Yeah Author:Anthony Bourdain
“My writerly aspirations are pretty simple: to provide as many readers as possible with the same sort of wonderful immersion that I myself get from fantasy novels - and to make enough money to help feed my kids while doing so.” EnoughHelpingKidsSimpleFantasyNovelWonderfulReaderAspirationImmersionFantasy Novels Author:Saladin Ahmed
“As a kid, my brother and I would read the same novel, we'd memorize entire pages, reenact the book as it's characters, and would immerse in playing like that for hours. I suppose it was a natural follow up, wanting to still play in a similar fashion, but as an adult.” StillsBookPlayCharacterKidsHoursNaturalNovelFashionBrotherPagesAdultsMy BrotherFollow Up Author:Irena A. Hoffman
“I'd never imagined myself writing at all until I was almost 30. And horror films weren't to my taste, at least the super popular (slasher-y) ones of the day back then. The first novel I ever loved as a kid was Frankenstein, and I was always a crazy Hitchcock and Polanski fan... but I never saw myself - a square spazzy girl from the suburbs - writing anything that would horrify anyone. Or so I thought.” WritingFirstsKidsFilmGirlNovelSawsCrazyFansTasteHorrorSquaresSuburbsHorror FilmHitchcock Author:Karen Walton
“I had been a student in Vienna, and one of the neat little things I had found out was about that zoo. It was a good debut novel for me to have published. I was 26 or 27 when it was published. I already had a kid and would soon have a second.” LittlesKidsFoundNovelStudentsLittle ThingsNeatZoosDebutVienna Author:John Irving
“I was never a cool person; in fact, cool people have always made fun of me. That’s why I loved [the Robert Cormier YA novel] The Chocolate War - because the cool kids (not the establishment) were the villains. I totally identified with that.” PeoplePersonsMadeWarFactsKidsFunNovelChocolateVillainEstablishmentCool PeopleCool KidCool Person Author:Simon Rich
“You sing about the things you're influenced by. So we've been big into sci-fi since we were kids, things like Star Trek etc. Then came movies like Terminator and Dune. Burton is also a really big reader and loves sci-fi novels which helps him write. It's also really cool he does that because it's through the perspective of how we see things going or possibly going.” WritingDoeHelpingBigsKidsStarsNovelPerspectiveReaderAnd LoveEtcSci FiReally Cool Author:Dino Cazares
“I was an English major in university and that got me into novels, but I read a lot of books as a kid.” BookKidsNovelMajorsUniversityEnglish Major Author:Dan Mangan
“It's actually not very hard to re-set between the adult novels and the ones for younger readers. The narrative voices are very similar, the smartass attitude, the environmental battles. Kids love books that are irreverent and challenge authority, when authority is arbitrary, greedy or foolish. They also love it when you make fun of grownups, and I've spent my whole life as a writer doing that.” BookHardWholeKidsFunVoiceChallengesAttitudeNovelReaderBattleAuthorityAdultsEnvironmentalWhole LifeFoolishNarrativeGreedyArbitraryGrownupsKids LoveIrreverentSmartassNarrative Voice Author:Carl Hiaasen