“When I first thought of the idea for 'Sweet Valley High,' I loved the idea of high school as microcosm of the real world. And what I really liked was how it moved things on from 'Sleeping Beauty'-esque romance novels where the girl had to wait for the hero. This would be girl-driven, very different, I decided - and indeed it is.” WorldFirstsIdeasDifferentRealWould BeSchoolRomanceGirlWaitingSleepNovelSweetHeroHigh SchoolDecidedMovedDrivenReal WorldValleysRomance NovelMicrocosmSleeping Beauty Author:Francine Pascal
“A screenwriter heard me read from my novel 'The Wishbones' when it was still in progress and mentioned me to some producers in Hollywood. They called, and I told them I had a novel in my drawer about a high school election that goes haywire. They asked to take a look, and my life changed pretty dramatically as a result.” LooksStillsSchoolResultsNovelProgressHeardChangedHigh SchoolHollywoodElectionProducersLife ChangingScreenwritersDrawersWishbones Author:Tom Perrotta
“I write on a computer, but I've run the complete gambit. When I was very young, I wrote with a ballpoint pen in school notebooks. Then I got pretentious and started writing with a dip pen on parchment (I wrote at least a novel-length poem that way). Moved on to a fountain pen. Then a typewriter, then an electric self-correct. Then someone gave me a word processor and I was amazed at being able to fit ten pages on one of those floppy discs.” WayWritingSelfRunningAbleSchoolYoungNovelFitTenComputerPagesMovedLengthPensElectricAmazedFountainNotebookTypewritersPretentiousDipMoved OnDiscsProcessorsGambitFountain PensBallpoint Pens Author:Charles de Lint
“While I was writing poems, I would often divert myself by reading detective novels, I liked them. And there was a period when I read many of them. I absorbed the form, and I liked it, it was a good one, mostly the hard-boiled school, you know, Chandler, Hammett, and their heirs. That was the direction that interested me most.” KnowsWritingHardSchoolFormReadingNovelPeriodsDetectivesHeirsWriting Poems Author:Paul Auster
“The thing is that my first novel, which was basically a mystery adventure story, won quite an important award in Spain for young adult fiction, and because of this it became a very successful book, and right now it's some sort of a standard title, it's read widely in many high schools in Spain, so I think, in a way, I was a victim of my own success in the field of young adult fiction, because it was never my own natural register. I never intended to write that kind of fiction, but I became very successful at it.” ThinkingWayWritingFirstsKindImportantBookStoriesSchoolYoungNaturalMy OwnFictionNovelSuccessfulMysteryFieldsAdventureRight NowStandardsHigh SchoolAdultsVictimYoung AdultTitlesAwardsSpainRegister Author:Carlos Ruiz Zafon
“I did ... learn an important distinction in graduate school: a speculation about who had syphilis when is gossip if it's about your friends, a plot element if it's about a character in a novel, and scholarship if it's about John Keats.” IfsImportantCharacterSchoolNovelElementsDistinctionPlotGossipGraduatesSpeculationScholarshipGraduate SchoolSyphilis Book:Second words: selected critical prose Source: Second words: selected critical prose
“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 read a lot of literary theory when I was in graduate school, especially about novels, and the best book I ever read about endings was Peter Brooks' 'Reading for the Plot. '” BookSchoolReadingNovelTheoryPlotGraduatesPeterBrooksGraduate SchoolLiterary Theory Author:Lev Grossman
“I taught elementary school and painted apartments for ten years. Now I write full-time and never have to change a thing I write. Every book comes to me in a flash of inspiration and takes me about two seconds to finish. The longer books, like the Time Warp Trio novels, take a little longer to write - more like four seconds.” WritingYearsLittlesTwoBookInspirationSchoolNovelFourTaughtTenTake MeSecondsFlashApartmentElementary SchoolWarpTrios Author:Jon Scieszka
“Tightly-plotted, well-researched and beautifully drawn, this book is a real delight. Garen Ewing's mix of engaging characters, exciting old-school adventure, attractive ligne claire artwork and fluid storytelling makes The Rainbow Orchid easily one of the best graphic novels of the year.” YearsWellsBookRealCharacterSchoolNovelAdventureExcitingDelightStorytellingAttractiveRainbowEngagingGraphicFluidArtworkOld SchoolClaireGraphic NovelsOrchids Author:Bryan Talbot
“I developed a mania for Fitzgerald - by the time I'd graduated from high school I'd read everything he'd written. I started with 'The Great Gatsby' and moved on to 'Tender Is the Night,' which just swept me away. Then I read 'This Side of Paradise,' his novel about Princeton - I literally slept with that book under my pillow for two years.” YearsTwoBookSchoolNightSidesNovelWrittenHigh SchoolMovedParadiseTwo YearsPillowMoved OnManiaPrincetonTender Is The Night Author:A. Scott Berg
“People didn't know certain things about me, which... I was out of creative writing class in school, Syracuse University; had a B.A. in English and wanted to write the great American novel but I also loved rock and roll. I was in bar bands all through college, playing fraternities and have to know all the songs in the top 10. That kind of thing.” PeopleKnowsWritingKindWantedSchoolCertainSongClassNovelCreativeRocksCollegeBandUniversityBarsRock And RollCreative WritingGreat AmericanFraternityTop 10SyracuseClasses In School Author:Lou Reed
“I was heavily influenced by my first attempt at a novel. I started a fantasy novel back in high school, and... well... it really sucked. It was a plotless, clichéd mess.” FirstsWellsSchoolFantasyNovelHigh SchoolMessFantasy Novels Author:Patrick Rothfuss
“When I was probably about 10 or 11, and I found it was simply something I could do. When you're at school and you do something and you get praised for it, you think, "Oh, right, well I'll do that." From then on, I always thought I'd be a writer. I thought novels at first, and then I sort of naturally drifted into TV.” ThinkingFirstsWellsSchoolFoundNovelTvs Author:Steven Knight
“I'd written my first novel for adults, which was called Basic Eight and was set in a high school, and we were having a devil of a time selling it. It ended up in the hands of an editor of a children's publishing house, for which it was entirely inappropriate. She said, "Well, we can't publish this, but I think you should write something for children," which I thought was a really terrible idea.” ThinkingShouldWritingFirstsWellsChildrenSaidIdeasHandsSchoolHouseNovelWrittenTerribleHigh SchoolDevilAdultsEightSellingEditorsPublishingPublishInappropriatePublishing House Author:Daniel Handler
“I think there's a real connection between acting and writing novels because the way I write characters has a little bit to do with the method acting that I was taught in high school and college.” ThinkingWayWritingLittlesRealCharacterSchoolBitsActingNovelTaughtCollegeLittle BitHigh SchoolConnectionsMethodMethod ActingReal Connection Author:Jeffrey Eugenides
“Jonathan Coe's genial, likeable novel can only be described as a kind of lit-prog-rock concept album... Coe recreates the period with such loving accuracy that I frankly suspect him of having planted a secret microphone in the tin Oxford Mathematical Instruments box I carried around in my school days... As always with Jonathan Coe, the sheer intelligent good nature that suffuses his work makes it a pleasure to read.” KindSchoolPleasureSecretNovelRocksPeriodsConceptsIntelligentInstrumentsAlbumsBoxesMathematicalSuspectsSheerLitAccuracyOxfordMicrophonesTinGood NatureLikeableSchool Days Author:Peter Bradshaw
“It was just such a complete shock to turn on the news one day and see someone that you know, someone you have passed in the halls of your high school. It got me thinking, 'Well, what are some novels that are about female sexual psychopaths? I really didn't have many references for that, and I felt like that was a void in transgressive literature that I wanted to fill.'” ThinkingKnowsWellsWantedSchoolTurnsLiteratureFeltNovelOne DayNewsHigh SchoolFemaleShockHallsVoidTurn-onPsychopath Author:Alissa Nutting
“If my novel gets any attention in Bulgaria, it will be as a scandal: a book about a teacher at a famous school and his relationship with a prostitute. I doubt very much it will be evaluated on its merits as literature. If Bulgarian were the book's only language, that would be painful and limiting to me as a writer. Since my book also exists in English - where it isn't scandalous at all - I feel comfortable with the possibility of scandal.” IfsFeelsBookWould BeSchoolLiteratureLanguageAttentionNovelDoubtTeacherPossibilityComfortablePainfulMeritScandalScandalousBulgariaBulgarians Author:Garth Greenwell
“As a matter of fact, I constantly tell audiences all over the world that the single greatest icon of American culture from the publication of "To Kill A Mockingbird" was that novel so that if we say, what conversation can we have that would lead us on a road of tolerance, and teachers have decided that if you're going to teach values in a school in America, the answer that American teachers at all kinds of schools have come up with, just let Harper Lee teach "To Kill A Mockingbird." And then all the teacher has to do is stand back and guide the discussion.” IfsWorldKindMatterFactsSchoolAmericaValuesCultureAnswersTeachNovelAudienceTeacherConversationDecidedCome UpGuidesToleranceAll KindsDiscussionAmerican CultureIconsPublicationMatter Of FactHarperMockingbirdKill A Mockingbird Author:Wayne Flynt
“The reviews on it, and the new novel, Honky Tonk Samurai have been awesome, though I'm of the school if you believe the good ones you got to believe the bad ones, it's been mostly good ones. The previewers seem to be very happy and excited about it. I know I am. There are plans to continue if it does well.” IfsKnowsBelieveWellsDoeHas BeensSeemsSchoolNovelPlansExcitedReviewsVery HappyIf You BelieveSamuraiTonks Author:Joe R. Lansdale
“I was in school for literature, and read so many 19th century and early 20th century novels that it was hard to break out of that and read an average Jeanette Winterson book or something.” BookHardSchoolLiteratureBreakNovelCenturyAverage20th Century19th CenturyBreak Out Author:Colin Meloy
“Novels are routinely denigrated when characters are not found to be likable. Is Raskolnikov likable? Is King Lear? The plethora of such naive readers testifies to a failure of imagination - the capacity to see into unfamiliar lives, motives, feelings - and this failure must, at least in part, be the failure of the teaching of literature in the schools.” CharacterFeelingsSchoolFoundLiteratureImaginationNovelTeachingReaderKingsCapacityMotiveNaiveUnfamiliarLearRaskolnikov Author:Cynthia Ozick
“Until I was a junior in high school, I was a "boy scientist" type and expected to go into chemistry. Then I discovered the humanities. I read the plays of Shakespeare voraciously, some novels, such as Pasternack's Dr. Zhivago and Sinclair Lewis' Main Street, and I got into philosophy by reading Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.” PhilosophyPlaySchoolHumanityReadingBoysNovelStreetsTypeHigh SchoolScientistExpectedChemistryDrsJuniorsMain Street Author:Allen W. Wood