Weekly Geek #24: Author Fun Facts

This week's Weekly Geek: Fun Facts about authors!

Markus Zusak

• born January 1, 1975 in Sydney Australia
• his mom is Austrian and his dad is German
• he is married and has a daughter
• it took seven years for his first book to be published
• he's written five books: The Underdog (1999), Fighting Ruben Wolfe (2001), Getting the Girl (2001), I Am the Messenger (2002), The Book Thief (2006)
• he's working an another book: Bridge of Clay
• he likes to surf and watch movies
• one of his favorite books is "What's Eating Gilbert Grape."
• when asked where he gets his ideas from he says " I used to lie about this, but now I actually know – I started writing when I was sixteen. I’m thirty now. I get my ideas from fourteen years of thinking about it."
• he re-wrote the first 90 pages of The Book Thief between 150 to 200 times
• writing is hard for him and he says he has to drag himself to the desk to do it
• his advice to writers: Let failure be your friend!

John Green

• born August 24, 1977 in Indianapolis
• he is married, but no kids yet (his MySpace says "some day")
• he worked at a chaplain in a children's hospital for six months
• he loves learning about conjoined twins, finding out famous people's last words, and making up anagrams
• He's written three books: Looking for Alaska (2005), An Abundance of Katherines (2006) and Paper Towns (2008). Also a short story found in Let It Snow: Three Holiday Stories (2008)
• it took him four years to write Looking for Alaska
• he did a video blogging project with his brother Hank where the only way they communicated with each other for the whole year of 2007 was through vlogging... even though the year is over, they still do a ton of vlogging
• along with his brother Hank, he created the Ning group Nerd Fighters, which is becoming quite the movement
• Looking for Alaska is going to be a movie
• when asked where he gets his ideas from he says "I have no idea. I really don't. All I know is that my books all start with a person."
• his advice to writers: "Try to experience a lot of heartbreak and woe. Ideally, there should also be some weeping and gnashing of the teeth. That stuff will come in handy later. But the most important thing is to read. That's true whether you're an aspiring writer or a working one. Reading is the only apprenticeship that writers have. "

I love both these guys and hope that they have many many more books coming in the future!