Monday, July 23, 2012

Pre-#LA12SCBWI Interview with Dan Gutman


Jolie Stekly talks with upcoming SCBWI Summer Conference Keynoter (and funny author of more than 100 books for kids) Dan Gutman!

Dan is so funny, even his BIO cracks you up!  Proof:  Here's his conference bio...

Dan Gutman was born in a log cabin in Illinois and used to write by candlelight with a piece of chalk on a shovel. Oh, wait a minute. That was Abraham Lincoln.  Actually, he grew up in New Jersey.  Like many boys, Dan hated to read but loved sports. That’s why he writes so many sports books aimed at reluctant readers.  HE graduated from Rutgers in 1977 with a degree in psychology (which means, in Latin, "a total waste of time").  He never took a writing class in his life, which is obvious to anyone who has read his books. In 1994, Dan penned a novel about a boy who can travel through time with baseball cards.  Honus & Me was published by HarperCollins which turned it into an 11-book series. In his insatiable quest for world domination, Dan dreamed up My Weird School in 2004, a series of easy readers about a school in which all the grown-ups are insane and has written 40 of them. Dan’s goal is to keep writing My Weird School until HarperCollins rips the laptop out of his cold, dead hands. He has also written The Homework Machine,Million Dollar Shot, The Kid Who Ran For President, and a bunch of other books that didn't sell.  When he’s not writing books, Dan writes self-aggrandizing third-person bios like this one. 

Jolie and Dan talk about rejections (and how to deal with them) and we even get Dan's advice on how to find our own "sweet spot" as writers. 

It's a great glimpse into what we can look forward to with Dan giving the Friday afternoon keynote, "How a Dumbass LIke Me Got 100 Books Published" and the Saturday workshop, "Let's Write A Story Together."   

To be inspired by and learn from Dan and the rest of the amazing SCBWI Summer Conference faculty) you'll need to be there yourself.  But there's not much time left!  The #LA12SCBWI conference is August 3-6, 2012.  Register here!

Illustrate and Write On,
Lee

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