I
was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to begin with. Together, my mother, a
school teacher, and my father, a returning World War II paratrooper
pursuing his college studies, brought tons of books into our small
house on Cliffview Road. I guess you could say that these books were
my first introduction to the world of literature. My father was always
writing, so the sound of the typewriter was like the background music
of my early childhood.
When I was eight, we relocated to Connecticut where I finished elementary
school and high school. I went to college at the University of Connecticut,
majoring first in music (too hard), psychology (too many theories),
and finally English (yes! lot and lots of books!). I graduated
UConn with
a bachelors degree in English Literature. After that, I traveled to
Europe for quite a while, drank a lot of coffee, and wrote notebooks
full of
strange poetry. When I returned, I found work in a variety of bookstores
and finally a library where I met my wife to be.
It was when I began reading bedtime stories to my children that the
spark of writing I had had for so many years finally turned to children's
books.
After many failures, my first published book, Danger Guys, was written
while taking a writing class with renowned children's author, Patricia
Reilly Giff. That first book, and the series that it began, became
the cornerstone of my writing career. Since then, I've written over
sixty
books for readers ages 6 to 12, including the popular fantasy saga,
The Secrets of Droon.
Over 6 million of my books have been sold worldwide, and my series
have been translated into Italian, Spanish, Korean, French, Japanese
and Russian.
Danger Guys was named a Children's Book-of-the-Month Club Main
Selection, and the American Booksellers Association voted The
Secrets of Droon among the "Top 10 List of Books to Read while Waiting for the Next Harry
Potter." The series was also a Main Selection of the Children's
Book-of-the-Month Club, and is on many school and library reading lists.
My literary and cultural interests include the films of Preston
Sturges, the Road pictures of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, the Marx
Brothers,
nearly everything John Cleese, Steve Reeves, or Kiera Knightley
have done,
and the writings of Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, P.G. Wodehouse,
Jules Verne,
Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Seamus Heaney, Emily Dickinson,
Ted Hughes, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, The Arabian
Nights, Beowulf,
and James Thurber. I'm currently a member of the Society of Children's
Book Writers and Illustrators, the Metropolitain Museum of Art,
the Yale Center for British Art, the Connecticut Reading Association,
a PTA, and
other esteemed organizations. With my wonderful wife, two delightful
and brilliant daughters, and the best dog imaginable,
I live and work happily in Trumbull, Connecticut.