“From the beginning, when I first got an idea for a story and wondered if I could write it, it has always been the story that has driven me.” – Jean M. Auel
Born in Chicago on this date in 1936, Auel is
best known for her Earth's Children
books, a series of novels set in prehistoric Europe that explores interactions
of Cro-Magnon people with Neanderthals.
Thought
at the time of their publication to be “fantasy” or “science fiction” or a combination
of the two, it turns out that the interaction that Auel imagined has quite a
few elements of truth as recent scientific discoveries show that we all probably carry some Neanderthal DNA.
After
she got the initial idea to explore her premise of the interactions of Cro-Magnons
and Neanderthals, she began extensive library research of the Ice Age
for her first book Clan of the Cave Bear,
published in 1980. She joined a survival class to learn how to
construct an ice cave, and learned primitive methods of making fire, tanning
leather, and knapping stone. It’s that attention to historic and day-in,
day-out “detail” that captivates her readers and has won her numerous writing
accolades, not only for that book but also for the 5 others that followed. To date her books have sold some 50
million copies worldwide.
“I can't tell you any more than any other
writer can tell you why they write, and I don't know
what my influences are,”
she said, adding that 
she reads and reads and reads, honing her own terrific
storytelling style by observing the countless efforts of others. “I probably read 100 times more than I write,
but that way when I move my characters through it, I know.”
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