“Ideas
are all around you - everything gives you ideas. But the real source is the
part of your brain that dreams.” – Bruce Coville
A native New Yorker born on this date in 1950, Coville
said he became enamored with the idea of becoming a writer in 6th
grade and started working on it seriously by age 17. Today, as an author of young adult fiction,
he has over 100 books in his repertoire … and counting.
His first novel, The Foolish Giant,
came out in 1977 and he has produced two to three books a year ever since. Among
his many award winning works are his novels My Teacher Glows in the Dark and I Was a 6th Grade Alien, and
his audio adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein’s The Rolling Stones.
In 2012, Coville was named for the "Empire State
Award for Excellence in Literature for Young People,” presented by the New York
Library Association.
“Like most people, I was not able to
start selling my stories right away,” he said.
“So I had many other jobs along
the way to becoming a writer, including toy maker, gravedigger, cookware
salesman, and assembly line worker. Eventually, I became an elementary teacher
and worked with second and fourth graders.”
All of those things, he said, shaped his life and writing. And he encourages beginning writers to to
dream big.
“If you don’t jump,” he said, “the wings never come.”
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