A Publishing Prodigy

Gordon Korman is a favorite author among upper elementary and middle school students. His road to publishing is unique. At age 12, he wrote his first novel. He knew that to be published, he had to send it to a publisher. The only one he knew was Scholastic, because he was the Scholastic book sale captain for his class. So he sent off his manuscript, and they liked it! Scholastic released the book when he was 14 and a high school freshman. "I don't know what my friends were thinking inside," he said, "but they didn't make any big deal of it. It was just what I did."

Now age 46, he has written over 60 books--all still published by Scholastic--and won many awards. He told his Plum Creek Children's Literacy Festival audience that his humorous school and family stories are inspired by his own experience. He takes a trait of someone he knows and gives that trait to a character, exaggerating it to make it more humorous. His adventure books come from research. He told about learning about the science behind deep sea diving, including shark behavior, and using that information in his plots for his Dive series. Korman is also one of the authors of the popular 39 Clues series.

See an author interview and learn more about his books here.