2012 Authors
Read, Write, Imagine!
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Frank Beddor had scaled the heights of professional skiing (as a two-time freestyle world champion) and filmmaking (as producer of the 1998 hit "There's Something About Mary" - not to mention being a stuntman and actor) before deciding to become an author (of the New York Times best seller "The Looking Glass Wars," the first volume of a like-titled trilogy). This transformation was born of "an odd, empty feeling" and a serendipitous whisper of inspiration. |
I grew up in Richland on Saint Street, went to Sacajawea Elementary, Hanford Junior High, and Hanford High School. I caught lizards and scorpions in the desert past the gas station at the west end of Saint. I swam in the Lynwood Loop pool, jumped off of the Port of Benton, got picked on relentlessly by a bully in junior high (he’s dead now…and I swear I didn’t do it), had my first real kiss in the school parking lot, was a major slacker on my homework (don’t tell your teacher this part), drove a bright yellow pickup with flames on the side, led off for the 1985 Hanford baseball team that won the state championship, played point guard for the basketball team that reached the semi-finals, and was voted prom king. And, yes, I did manage to get into college and became a writer…oh, and a lawyer. I’ve got two boys, Aspen 11 and Aiden 7, a wife (Cara), and a big ol’ dog named Milo. |
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One Creepy Fact: I’m terrified of spiders. I used to scream when I saw them and make my brothers suck them up in the vacuum cleaner. After awhile I began to fear the vacuum cleaner. I mean what if they were all still alive in there plotting revenge? I’m much more grown-up about spiders now. I don’t scream when I see them anymore, I just groan and run away. Someone once said “They’re more afraid of you than you are of them.” Um, yeah right! An interview with Janet Lee Carey on Seattlewrote blog |
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Alex Flinn is a former lawyer and former opera singer. In elementary school, she got her first rejection letter and knew she was on her way to being a writer. She is the author of ten published books, including Beastly, which was recently made into a motion picture, so she got to go to a Hollywood premiere, and her mom took an embarrassing number of photos of her with Neil Patrick Harris! Her new book, Bewitching (February, 2012), is a companion to Beastly. She lives in Miami with her husband, two daugh-ters, a cat, dog, rabbit, two tortoises, and a marine toad who comes onto the patio to eat the dog food. |
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I was born in 1952 in Berkeley, California. I lived in the Bay Area until I was five, by which time I had three younger siblings. In 1958 we moved to St. Louis Park, Minnesota, where my parents continued to produce offspring. I now have four brothers and two sisters. I graduated honor-free from St. Louis Park High School. (This is so tedious. Why do you keep reading?) Later, I attended college for seven years, then left without graduating, knowing a little bit about nearly eve-rything, and a great deal about absolutely nothing. That superficial education now serves me well as a novelist. After college I worked various jobs for which I was ill-suited, including sign painter, graphic artist, marketing executive, painter cap salesman, pineapple slicer, etc. Eventually, having exhausted all my respectable options, I decided to write novels. |
Colleen Houck |
Frank Beddor
Pete Hautman
Blake Nelson was a great builder of forts as a boy. He preferred backyard tree forts but was not above building the occasional underground fort, (digging a hole and putting a board over it), the back of the garage fort (under dad’s workbench), or the old classic: the kitchen table with a sheet over it fort. All forts are good for the soul, reasoned Young Blake, as they provided solitude, privacy, and a place from which to shoot rubber bands at siblings, pets and parents without detection. |
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Ridley Pearson likes to climb trees – really tall trees – in his spare time. He says he's lucky not to have too much spare time! He also plays in a rock and roll band with some other authors which has gotten him on stage with Bruce Springsteen, among others. He's an Eagle Scout though doesn't remember getting a merit badge in writing. He's had a play and a movie made from his books. He co-writes books for younger readers with one of the funniest men on the planet, Dave Bar-ry. He's the father of two girls... and you'll never guess their names: Paige and Storey. That's right: Paige and Storey. Do you think they'll ever forgive him? Maybe they will – he carries a VIP pass that's good for free entrance in any Disney theme park in the world. |
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Alexander Gordon Smith has been writing horror stories since he was a kid, although his first book – The Silly Book of Monsters, written when he was six – wasn’t very frightening at all. They’ve been getting better ever since, and his latest series, Escape From Furnace, is so terrifying that even his agent told him “it’s too scary.” He uses his own worst fears for inspiration, which is lucky because he has been scared of most things ever since he spent the night in a haunted house when he was eleven. Gordon, as he is known, also writes horror films and video games. “It doesn’t matter how you tell the story, so long as it’s scary!” He lives in Norwich, England. Visit Furnace Penitentiary, if you dare! |
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I became a writer because I hate housework. I had to have SOME excuse for how I was spending my days at home but not having time to clean. So I chose the well-please-excuse-the-messy-house-but-I've-been-busy-writing route. And I rational-ize the fact that I spend so much time playing computer games by pointing out that some of my stories have to do with gaming—User Unfriendly was the first, followed by Heir Apparent, and my most recent (coming in spring 2012) Deadly Pink. In my stories, something always goes terribly wrong with the game, because what would be the point otherwise? Most of my other stories are fantasy and in-volve ghosts, vampires, and some pretty non-traditional witches. |
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Robin Wasserman decided to be a writer when she realized no one would pay her to be a reader. (She was 7.) Since then, she’s written the Cold Awakening trilogy, the Chasing Yesterday trilogy, Hacking Harvard, several Star Wars and Pokémon books, and the Seven Deadly Sins series, which was turned into a Lifetime movie. (That was, if you’re wondering, the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to her.) She lives in New York City, where she watches massive amounts of (often embarrassingly trashy) TV and is working on eating at every Italian restaurant in the city limits. Her new book, The Book of Blood and Shadow, comes out in Janu-ary 2012. |
When Jim Whiting’s seventh grade PE class ran a 100-yard dash, Jim finished dead last among more than 60 boys. A few years later, Jim discovered that he had some talent for running. So if he ever wins the lottery he plans to track down everyone and re-run the race. Jim and his sailboat almost got sunk by a gray whale. Being fired in 2000 from a job writing product descriptions for an online sporting goods company was one of the best things that ever happened to Jim. Jim’s first published short story was based on running in the original Olympic stadium in Olympia, Greece and nearly being arrested. |
Ridley Pearson 
Alexander Gordon Smith 
Jim Whiting