Michael de Guzman

When I was a kid I memorized stories from pop-up books and went door-to-door selling recitations for a nickel. I found out early that it’s a tough way to make a living. I kept doing it anyway, mostly because I wasn’t any good at anything else. I’ve done a little of everything since, including a twenty year stint writing television movies for ABC, CBS, HBO, NBC, and Showtime. One of them, an adaptation of E.L. Konigsburg’s Father’s Arcane Daughter (the movie was called ‘Caroline?’) convinced me that I saw and felt the world most clearly through the heart and mind of the kid inside me. When I turned sixty, I started writing novels for young readers. It’s the best decision I ever made.

I was brought up in New York City and Wickford, Rhode Island. I went to high school in Manhattan and college in Rhode Island, where I met my wife, to whom, much to my good fortune, I am still married.

Many years ago, my father sent me a postcard with the picture of a wastebasket on it. Beneath the basket were the words: "A writer’s toughest critic is himself." I still have the card, frayed and faded now from its many years of service. It is taped to a spot where I see it when I work.

Michael de Guzman lives in Seattle, Washington