Group items tagged

Draper, Sharon. The Battle of Jericho. New York: Simon … Schuster, 2003. Draper, Sharon. Forged by Fire. New York: Simon … Schuster, 1997. Draper, Sharon. Tears of a Tiger. New York: Simon … Schuster, 1994. Draper, Sharon. Ziggy and the Black Dinosaurs. East Orange, N.J.: Just Us Books, 1994. Draper, Sharon. Ziggy and the Black Dinosaurs: Lost in the Tunnel of Time. East Orange, N.J.: Just Us Books, 1996

In addition, Draper became part of the National Board for Teaching Standards and contributed to a number of professional publications to push the need for teacher accountability and development.

Being the Teacher of the Year ambassador kept Draper on the road more than twenty days a month.

One day, Draper explains on her Web site, a bold young man handed her a crumpled application form and said, "You think you so bad— why don't you write something! Enter this contest!"

Draper accepted his challenge and submitted a short story to Ebony magazine's annual Gertrude Johnson Williams Literary Competition.

Months went by

Draper promptly forgot that she had even entered a contest.

One day, however, she received a phone call that her short story, "One Small Torch," had taken first prize.

she began receiving letters

calls of congratulations—

very famous writers.

importantly,

win ignited a spark in Draper, who decided to try her hand at a longer work of fiction.

As luck would have it, while she was waiting for Tears to be published, Draper was contacted by her agent who said that another publishing house, the African American-run Just Us Books, had inquired whether Draper had anything in the works for younger readers.

Tears of a Tiger focuses on an African American teen named Andy Jackson, who struggles to come to terms with the death of his best friend, Robert.

Draper uses a variety of devices to move the story along.

As Draper told David Marc Fischer of Writing!, "For young people, the largest part of the day is spent in school.

So I make school assignments and activities vital parts of my stories."

Ziggy and the Black Dinosaurs also ended up being a trilogy, with all three books following the adventures of ten-year-old Ziggy, who forms a club called the Black Dinosaurs with his three best friends.

just as she did in the Hazelwood High books, the teacher-turned-author mixes some "lessons" in with the adventure.

, Lost in the Tunnel of Time (1996), Ziggy and friends discover a tunnel once used as a station for the Underground Railroad.

one teacher told Kelly Starling of Ebony, "Few books have elicited such strong emotion in my students as Tears of a Tiger.

only book some of them have read completely."

Forged by Fire

Seattle Times, the ALA jury commended Draper "for tackling troubling contemporary issues, and providing concrete options and positive African American role models."

"The stems stood tall and straight, one series arranged in a single line, the other in a crudely shaped heart, the final one in the shape of the letter U. I love you." — Lurlene McDaniel (Don't Die, My Love)

"I think that hurting gives us a way to measure being happy. How can you know one without knowing the other." — Lurlene McDaniel (Time to Let Go)

"Who wants to be used? I love to read, so books are my main friends. They're always available, always friendly, and always interesting, and they never make me choose sides." — Lurlene McDaniel

"We all didn't come into to the world at the same time so it makes sense that we don't leave it at the same time."

After just barely graduating from high school in Thief River Falls, Minnesota, in 1959, Paulsen attended Bemidji College in Minnesota, for two years, paying for his tuition with money he'd earned as a trapper for the state of Minnesota. When he flunked out of college, he joined the U.S. Army, serving from 1959 to 1962, and working with missiles. After his tour of duty was completed, he took extension courses to become a certified field engineer, finding work in the aerospace departments of the Bendix and Lockheed corporations. There it occurred to him that he might try and become a writer. "I'd finished reading a magazine article on flight-testing . . . and thought, gad, what a way to make a living—writing about something you like and getting paid for it!" he told F. Serdahely in Writer's Digest. "I remembered writing some of my past reports, some fictionalized versions I'd included. And I thought: 'What the hell, I am an engineering writer.' But, conversely, I also realized I didn't know a thing about writing professionally. After several hours of hard thinking, a way to learn came to me. All I had to do was go to work editing a magazine."

Creating a fictitious resume, Paulsen was able to obtain an associate editor position on a men's magazine in Hollywood, California. Although it soon became apparent to his employers that he had no editorial experience, he once told SATA that "they could see I was serious about wanting to learn, and they were willing to teach me." He spent nearly a year with the magazine, finding it "the best of all possible ways to learn about writing. It probably did more to improve my craft and ability than any other single event in my life." Still living in California, Paulsen also found work as a film extra (he once played a drunken Indian in a movie called Flap), and took up sculpting as a hobby, even winning first prize in a local exhibition.

Paulsen's first book, The Special War, was published in 1966, and he soon proved himself to be one of the most prolific authors in the United States. In little over a decade, working mainly out of northern Minnesota—where he returned after becoming disillusioned with Hollywood—he published nearly forty books and close to two hundred articles and stories for magazines. Among Paulsen's diverse titles were a number of children's nonfiction books about animals, a biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., several humorous titles under the "Sports on the Light Side" series published by Raintree Press, two plays, adult fiction and nonfiction, as well as some initial ventures into juvenile fiction. On a bet with a friend, he once wrote eleven articles and short stories inside four days and sold all of them.H

After attending the Bronx High School of Science Mazer served in World War II in the U.S. Army Air Force from 1943–45. He became a sergeant, and he received a Purple Heart and an Air Medal with four bronze oak leaf clusters after his B-17 bomber was shot down over Czechoslovakia in April 1945. His wartime experiences eventually inspired several works of historical fiction, including The Last Mission and A Boy at War. After returning to the U.S., Mazer went to Union College, where he earned a BA in 1948. From 1950 to 1955 he was a railroad brakeman and switchtender for New York Central. He was an English teacher in upstate New York at the

Central Square School for a year, in 1959. In 1960 he received a M.A. from Syracuse University. He has won numerous awards including several 'Best Books' designations from the American Library Association, The Knickerbocker Award from the New York Library Association (2001), and The ALAN Award for Contributions to Young Adult Literature (2003). Mazer co-authored three books with his late wife, Norma Fox Mazer. He is the father of author Anne Mazer.

She has had numerous #1 New York Times bestsellers.Cabot has more than fifteen million copies of her books—children's, young adult, and adult—in print worldwide.

Notable work(s) The Princess Diaries Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls The Mediator

Meg Cabot married financial writer and poet Benjamin D. Egnatz on April 1, 1993. Their wedding date,[3] April Fool’s Day, was a deliberate play on her husband's belief that only fools get married in the first place. The wedding was actually an elopement in Italy. Her novel Every Boy's Got One is loosely based on her own elopement. She has two cats, Henrietta (a one eyed cat) and Gem, about whom she often blogs.

Young adult novels

All-American Girl series All American Girl (September 2002) Ready or Not: An All-American Girl Novel (July 2005)

The series revolves around Samantha Madison, a Washington, D.C. native, who, while skipping her after-school art class, saves the life of the president, and becomes a national hero. The two books are about her rise to fame and her love life with the president's son, David, who appears to want to take th

eir relationship to the next level in the second book. There is also a short story called Another All American Girl in the anthology Our White House:Looking In, Looking Out, about Samantha's experience in the White House. [edit] Avalon High series

Other young adult fiction

Nicola and the Viscount (August 2002) Victoria and the Rogue (March 2003) Teen Idol (July 2004) How to Be Popular (July 2006) Pants on Fire/Tommy Sullivan is a Freak (May 2007) Jinx (July 2007)

Queen of Babble series

Queen of Babble (May 2006) Queen of Babble in the Big City (June 2007) Queen of Babble Gets Hitched (June 2008/April 2009 - Paperback) Queen of Babble debuted at #27 on the New York Times Bestseller List. The main character of this romantic comedy, Lizzie Nichols, is a recent college grad who isn't sure what she wants out of life. All she knows is that she can't keep a secret, even her own. This causes her many romantic, friendship, and work-related problems, especially after moving to New York City after graduating from college. There, she can't seem to keep her mouth shut long enough not to screw up her dreams . . . but nothing is going to keep her from trying to find the career she's wanted. And maybe a boyfriend, too.

Short stories

Works by Meg Cabot (publication order)

ess Present (2004) • Princess in Training (2005) • Party Princess (2006) • Sweet Sixteen Princess (2006) • Valentine Princess (2006) Princess on the Brink (2007)

Princess Mia (2008) • Forever Princess (2009)

The Mediator novel series Shadowland (2000) • Ninth Key (2001) • Reunion (2001) • Darkest Hour (2001) • Haunted (2003) • Twilight (2004)

1-800-WHERE-R-YOU novel series When Lightning Strikes (2001) • Code Name Cassandra (2001) • Safe House (2002) • Sanctuary (2002) • Missing You (2006)

All-American Girl novel series All American Girl (2002) • Ready or Not: An All-American Girl Novel (2005)

Avalon High novel series Avalon High (2005) • The Merlin Prophecy (2007 manga) • Homecoming (2008 manga) • Hunter's Moon (2009 manga)

Heather Wells novel series Size 12 is Not Fat (2006) • Size 14 is Not Fat Either (2006) • Big Boned (2007)

Queen of Babble novel series Queen of Babble (2006) • Queen of Babble in the Big City (2007) • Queen of Babble Gets Hitched (2008)

002) • The Boy Next Door (2002) • She Went All the Way (2002) • Victoria and the Rogue (2003) • Teen Idol (2004) •

Other novels Where Roses Grow Wild (1998) • Portrait of My Heart (1999) • An Improper Proposal (1999) • A Little Scandal (2000) • Lady of Skye (2000) • Educating Caroline (2001) • Kiss the Bride (2002) • Nicola and the Viscount (

Boy Meets Girl (2004) • Every Boy's Got One (2005) • How to Be Popular (2006) • Pants On Fire (2007) • Jinx (2007) Airhead (2008) Being Nikki (2009) Runaway (2010)

• "Allie Finklestine's Rules for Boys" (2006) • "Reunion" (2006) • "Cry, Linda, Cry: Judy Blume’s Blubber and The Cruelest Thing in the World" (Spring 2007) • "Ask Annie" (2007) • "The Exterminator's Daughter" (2007) • "Every Girl's Dream" (?)

Short stories: "The Christmas Captive" (2000) • "Girl’s Guide to New York through the Movies" (2003) • "Kate the Great" (2003) • "Party Planner" (2004) • "Connie "Hunter" Williams, Psychic Teacher" (2005)

Meg Cabot was born on February 1, 1967, in Bloomington, Indiana. She was an avid reader from a very early age, at first gobbling up comic books and science fiction at the local library.

"It's one thing to be

princess of a kingdom; it is quite another to be princess of an entire planet!"

Although she enjoyed writing Cabot never planned on becoming a professional author. Instead, she dreamed of being an actress or a veterinarian.

Seven years and thousands of rejection letters later (Cabot claims she has a mail bag full of rejections), her first novel was finally published. It was an historical romance called Where Roses Grow Wild (1998), and it was written under the pen name, or alias, of Patricia Cabot. Several more romances followed in 1999 and 2000. At the same time, Cabot was busy trying her hand at a novel, called The Princess Diaries, that was aimed at younger readers. Even though she was a published author, Cabot's young adult novel was rejected seventeen times before it was finally purchased by HarperCollins and released in 2000.

"The reason girls are drawn to the book is an element of naughtiness—ooh, I'm reading something that's not supposed to be read."

The Princess Diaries movies may not have been quite as successful if eighteen-year-old newcomer Anne Hathaway had not been chosen to play Mia Thermopolis, the nerdy American who is transformed into European royalty. In fact, even critics who panned the film consistently praised the fresh-faced, fledgling actress. As David DiCerto of the Catholic News Service wrote, "The mediocre material is elevated somewhat by the buoyant and beautiful Hathaway, whose sunny smile could light up a small kingdom of two."

Courtesy of HarperCollins

climbed up into his attic and found an old typewriter

nine years old

joke books

writing ever since

humor

editor

ten years

make kids laugh

do have a phobia that my nephews think is just insane - I cannot jump into water. I have to step into swimming pools. It's a real phobia, but my nephews think it's hilarious that this scary guy is so terrified of jumping into water."

magazin

Banana

rom the Ohio State University,

graduated f

small magazines

start writing novels

28 years old

Goosebumps

y Nickelodeon TV show,

The Nightmare Room

a TV Show.

1992 - R.L. Stine releases a new book series - Goosebumps. This series is aimed at younger kids, but still delivers some scary tales. The book series eventually spun off into

R.L. Stine comes up with the titles of his books first and then works from there, while most authors come up with the title last.

ries like

for more than

He's bee

with s

writing

Fear Street,

She attended University of South Florida, receiving her degree in English, and currently lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee. McDaniel has moved on now, not just as an author, but also a public speaker, traveling the nation speaking at high schools and conventions.

McDaniel began writing about young adults when her son Sean was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at the age of 3. His illness changed the lives of everyone in her family forever. "I saw what life was like for someone who was chronically ill, and I experienced how it affected the dynamics of the family," says McDaniel. She says she found that writing about the trauma and its effects was therapeutic

In addition to her popular YA novels, McDaniel has written radio and television scripts, promotional and advertising copy, and a magazine column. She is a frequent speaker at schools, writers' conferences, and conventions.

Three of her novels were selected by children as IRA-CBC Children's Choices: SOMEWHERE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH, TOO YOUNG TO DIE, and GOODBYE DOESN'T MEAN FOREVER. SIX MONTHS TO LIVE has been placed in a literary time capsule at the Library of Congress, to be opened in the year 2089.

McDaniel's works include TO LIVE AGAIN, one of the Dawn Rochelle books; ANGEL OF MERCY, the companion to ANGEL OF HOPE; and HOW DO I LOVE THEE, three stories about young couples who are inspired by Elizabeth Barrett Browning's beautiful sonnet. In her novel, TELLING CHRISTINA GOODBYE, McDaniel shows that everything can change in the blink of an eye.