Pardon Me, You're Stepping on My Eyeball by Paul Zindel

Paul Zindel was born on May 15, 1936, in Staten Island, New York. As quoted in English Journal, Zindel believes that his writing reflects how he sees the world 'as a problem-solving situation, and the solution of those problems through fiction seems to be the adventure that I've chosen for myself.' Early Adventures From his mother's inability to keep a job to his search for his own 'Pigman,' Zindel has told his stories in ten plays, seven screenplays, and over 20 young adult fiction books. I have to tell stories because that's the way the wiring went in.' However, Zindel also survived a childhood where his tales were born. We all have an active thing that we do that gives us self-esteem, that makes us proud it's necessary. In fact, Zindel told Teaching PreK-8 interviewer Diane Winarski that he was 'wired' to become a writer: 'I like storytelling. Paul Zindel did not choose to become a playwright, a screenwriter or young adult fiction writer.

After working as a technical writer for a chemical firm over 'six dreadful months', he spent 10 years as a high school chemistry teacher, writing in his spare time.From Pulitzer prize-winning playwright to young adult fiction writer, American author Paul Zindel (born 1936) turned his real-life turbulent teens into fictional stories to show teenagers that their lives and feelings do matter. It was here that he took a course in creative writing, taught by the playwright Edward Albee. Zindel claimed that he never read much as a child, and that he wrote for children who didn't like to read.Ī conscientious student, he studied at Wagner College, earning his undergraduate and master's degrees in chemistry. His mother, a nurse, also worked as a hot-dog vendor and hat-check attendant, and supplemented her income by taking in dying patients as boarders. Born in Staten Island, New York, he was two when his father, who was a policeman, walked out.

His own traumatic childhood provided him with a lifetime's worth of material. Creating a fictional universe inhabited by single parents, monstrous friends and boys in unfortunate specs, Zindel's books soon had even the most reluctant readers scouring the local library. Hinton, Robert Cormier and Judy Blume, he helped build a body of literature, long ignored by publishers, that for the first time addressed contemporary teen issues with honesty and humour. Zindel's 1968 debut novel, The Pigman, was part of a new fiction genre aimed at teenagers.

Pardon Me, You're Stepping on My Eyeball by Paul Zindel