Bookworm Literary Festival: Stephen Mooser
One of the great things for the kids to see at the Bookworm Literary Festival are the various paths the authors and illustrators followed to becoming published. In the past we have seen people who have been writing books since they could hold a pencil and string sentences together and people who stumbled into it after becoming parents themselves.
At this year's festival, for instance, we were introduced to the work of Stephen Mooser, author of more than 60 books for children. Someone that prolific, we would think, surely had been writing novels since birth. However, Mooser was a child actor (appearing on The Beverly Hillbillies), a UCLA film student, a documentary filmmaker, and a treasure hunter before he became a children's author.
More after the jump
Mooser began his talk answering the basic question that would normally be posed to an author in this situation: how did he become a writer? His first answer was that, more importantly, he needed to show how he became a reader, because being a reader first and foremost iwas what eventually led him to being a writer. Rather than just leave it at that, the kind of answer that made parents and teachers nudge and nod, he then reviewed his own personal history.
After acting and film school, Mooser tried his hand at making documentaries. The story he told of what basically was the end of his film career really stuck with Myles. Mooser was in Costa Rica, at a running-of-the-bulls type of event. He was framing a shot from the rear of a bull, through its horns, of some boys taunting the animal. He started the camera, and the sound of it startled the bull, which turned its attention to Mooser. His camera was whipped by the bulls horns into the stands, and Mooser himself was sliced across the stomach.
Mooser also followed another interest of his, treasure hunting. He was on a mission to find Butch Cassidy's hidden silver in the mountains of Utah. He never found the treasure (but to this day believes he may not have been too far off), but did sell the story to a fortune-hunting magazine, his first paid writing.
This eventually led him to writing a beginning readers for a phonics program, a task he described later in the morning as useful for helping understand plotting stories (characters, he said, took him a little while to get). Other books he wrote included collections of strange but true stories (like one about a man who at a car), choose-your-own-adventure-type science fiction, and a series of humorous middle-grade books called "All-Star Meatballs." What all these books had in common were they were about subjects Mooser was particularly interested in, and they were great vehicles for humor.
Currently Mooser is working on an intriguing concept in children's publishing. His newest series of books "The Class Clown Academy" involve not only print books, but also a website and an iPad app. Both Myles and Brigid were anxious to check out the app that afternoon (warning to the parents: there are whoopee cushion jokes). It's a great tie-in, with plenty of room to grow both the series and the digital version. He noted that this was his response to challenges writing for children today.
One of the reasons Mooser was in Beijing, in addition to participating in the Literary Festival, was in his role as president of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. A new Beijing chapter was formed, so he was here to meet with them. As well, there were meetings with publishers to discuss bring out-of-print titles in the Chinese market.
I found this interview online that Mooser gave that touches on much of what he discussed that I haven't even included (like a shout-out to his mentor Sid Fleischman!). He closed his talk coming back to the formula for his own writing success----read a lot, and write about what you find most interesting.
At this year's festival, for instance, we were introduced to the work of Stephen Mooser, author of more than 60 books for children. Someone that prolific, we would think, surely had been writing novels since birth. However, Mooser was a child actor (appearing on The Beverly Hillbillies), a UCLA film student, a documentary filmmaker, and a treasure hunter before he became a children's author.
More after the jump
Mooser began his talk answering the basic question that would normally be posed to an author in this situation: how did he become a writer? His first answer was that, more importantly, he needed to show how he became a reader, because being a reader first and foremost iwas what eventually led him to being a writer. Rather than just leave it at that, the kind of answer that made parents and teachers nudge and nod, he then reviewed his own personal history.
After acting and film school, Mooser tried his hand at making documentaries. The story he told of what basically was the end of his film career really stuck with Myles. Mooser was in Costa Rica, at a running-of-the-bulls type of event. He was framing a shot from the rear of a bull, through its horns, of some boys taunting the animal. He started the camera, and the sound of it startled the bull, which turned its attention to Mooser. His camera was whipped by the bulls horns into the stands, and Mooser himself was sliced across the stomach.
Mooser also followed another interest of his, treasure hunting. He was on a mission to find Butch Cassidy's hidden silver in the mountains of Utah. He never found the treasure (but to this day believes he may not have been too far off), but did sell the story to a fortune-hunting magazine, his first paid writing.
This eventually led him to writing a beginning readers for a phonics program, a task he described later in the morning as useful for helping understand plotting stories (characters, he said, took him a little while to get). Other books he wrote included collections of strange but true stories (like one about a man who at a car), choose-your-own-adventure-type science fiction, and a series of humorous middle-grade books called "All-Star Meatballs." What all these books had in common were they were about subjects Mooser was particularly interested in, and they were great vehicles for humor.
Currently Mooser is working on an intriguing concept in children's publishing. His newest series of books "The Class Clown Academy" involve not only print books, but also a website and an iPad app. Both Myles and Brigid were anxious to check out the app that afternoon (warning to the parents: there are whoopee cushion jokes). It's a great tie-in, with plenty of room to grow both the series and the digital version. He noted that this was his response to challenges writing for children today.
One of the reasons Mooser was in Beijing, in addition to participating in the Literary Festival, was in his role as president of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. A new Beijing chapter was formed, so he was here to meet with them. As well, there were meetings with publishers to discuss bring out-of-print titles in the Chinese market.
I found this interview online that Mooser gave that touches on much of what he discussed that I haven't even included (like a shout-out to his mentor Sid Fleischman!). He closed his talk coming back to the formula for his own writing success----read a lot, and write about what you find most interesting.
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