Richard Peck (writer)

Richard Peck

Peck at the National Bookfest in 2013
Born (1934-04-10) April 10, 1934
Decatur, Illinois, USA[1]
Occupation Writer
Nationality American
Period 1972–present (as novelist)
Genre Young adult fiction, horror, mystery
Notable awards Edgar Award
1977
Margaret Edwards Award
1990
National Humanities Medal
2001
Newbery Medal
2001

Richard Wayne Peck (born April 5, 1934) is an American novelist known for his prolific contributions to modern young adult literature. He was awarded the Newbery Medal in 2001 for his novel A Year Down Yonder (the sequel to A Long Way From Chicago.)[2] For his cumulative contribution to young-adult literature he received the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association in 1990.[3][lower-alpha 1]

Biography

Richard Wayne Peck was born on April 10, 1934 in Illinois to Virginia Grey Peck and Wayne Peck. His mother was a Wesleyan University graduate in economics and his father owned a service station. He has a sister, Cheryl, who is an administrator at a college in Springfield, Illinois. He attended elementary and high schools in Decatur.

Peck began his career as a high school teacher, but much to his dismay, was transferred to a junior high school to teach English. After a while, he decided to cut his career short and write. However, these observations about junior high school students proved excellent material for his books. He said, "Ironically, it was my students who taught me to be a writer, though I was hired to teach them."[4]

Peck studied at DePauw University, earning a bachelor's degree in English in 1956. He belonged to the Delta Chi fraternity and spent his junior year abroad at the University of Exeter. After college, he was drafted into the US Army as a chaplain's Assistant and spent two years serving in Stuttgart, Germany. In a 2003 interview he commented, "I think your view of the world goes on—for the rest of your life—as the world you saw as you emerged into it as an adult."[5]

After his military service ended, he completed a master's degree at Southern Illinois University in 1959 and taught junior high and high school English. He left teaching in 1971 to write his first novel, Don't Look and It Won't Hurt, published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston in 1972, in which "A teenage girl struggles to understand her place within her family and in the world." He has written a book each year since then, totaling 41 books in 41 years.

Peck is a person "who is fastidious about what he allows others to know about himself. He knows, respects, and honors personal boundaries in ways that are refreshing for someone who grew up in the sixties and seventies, when every little personal thing was fair game."[6] He currently lives in New York and divides his time between writing and traveling. Peck is an adjunct professor with Louisiana State University's School of Library and Information Sciences.[4]

Quotes

"The only way you can write by the light of the bridges burning behind you." — Richard Peck, at a PEN panel in NYC, Feb. 8, 2010.

"Ironically, it was my students who taught me to be a writer, though I had been hired to teach them," Peck said in a speech published in Arkansas Libraries. "They taught me that a novel must entertain first before it can be anything else. I learned that there is no such thing as a 'grade reading level'; a young person's 'reading level' and attention span will rise and fall according to his degree of interest. I learned that if you do not have a happy ending for the young, you had better do some fast talking."

"You never write about yourself; you just always wind up having written about yourself." — Oct. 10, 2013, to a library full of 4th graders in Pleasanton, CA.

"Nobody but a reader ever became a writer." — Aug. 5, 2013, SCBWI conference

Writer

Peck writes exclusively on a typewriter, described here in 'Publishers Weekly:

When the author is not traveling, he works at an L-shaped desk, which affords a sunny window. He writes everything on an electric typewriter because "it has to be a book from the first day," he explains. He has no daily routine because of all the traveling he does, but follows a very disciplined writing process. He writes each page six times, then places it in a three-ring binder with a DePauw University cover ("a talisman," he calls this memento from his alma mater). When he feels that he has gotten a page just right, he takes out another 20 words. "After a year, I've come to the end. Then I'll take this first chapter, and without rereading it, I'll throw it away and write the chapter that goes at the beginning. Because the first chapter is the last chapter in disguise." He always hands in a completed manuscript, and his editor is his first reader.

Although Peck finds a way to connect to readers around the world, he refuses to embrace new technology. He still types his material on a typewriter. He has also written two books that have a tech-savvy setting.

Peck believes each book should be a question, not an answer. He also believes that before anything else can happen a book needs to be entertaining. He is the author of many award-winning novels.

His collected papers written between 1972 and 1991 reside at The University of Southern Mississippi.[7]

Adaptations

Works

Anthologies edited

Collections

Novels

Several of these books have the subtitle "a novel".
  • Unfinished Portrait of Jessica (1991)
  • Bel-Air Bambi and the Mall Rats (1993)
  • Lost in Cyberspace! (1995)
  • The Last Safe Place on Earth (1995)
  • The Great Interactive Dream Machine: Another Adventure in Cyberspace (1996)
  • London Holiday (1998)
  • A Long Way from Chicago (1998)
  • Strays Like Us (1998)
  • A Year Down Yonder (2000)
  • Fair Weather (2001)
  • The River Between Us (2003)
  • The Teacher's Funeral: A Comedy in Three Parts (2004)
  • Here Lies The Librarian (2006)
  • On the Wings of Heroes (2007)
  • A Season of Gifts, illus. Brandon Dorman (2009)
  • Three Quarters Dead (2010)
  • Secrets at Sea, illus. Kelly Murphy (2011)
  • The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail, illus. Kelly Murphy (2013)
  • The Best Man (2016)

Nonfiction

Awards and honors

Book awards

Runners-up, etc.

Notes

  1. 1 2 Before 1988 the ALA awards did not distinguish "children's" literature—the Newbery book award and Wilder career award—from that for "young adults". Peck won the second biennial "Young Adult Services Division/School Library Journal Author Achievement Award", and the last one in that it was renamed and made annual that year.
    "1990 Margaret A. Edwards Award Winner". YALSA. ALA. Retrieved 2013-03-15.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 The lifetime Edwards Award recognizes a specified body of work for "helping adolescents become aware of themselves and addressing questions about their role and importance in relationships, society, and in the world." The 1990 panel cited six of Peck's books published from 1976 to 1985: Are You in the House Alone?, The Ghost Belonged to Me, Ghosts I Have Been, Father Figure, Secrets of the Shopping Mall, and Remembering the Good Times.
    The librarians noted, "Through sharp wit and strong storytelling, Richard Peck's novels encourage readers to carefully examine the world around them as well as to seek possibilities beyond immediate view."
  3. 1 2 3 4 The Blossom Culp series comprises four novels published 1975 to 1986: The Ghost Belonged to Me, Ghosts I Have Been, The Dreadful Future of Blossom Culp, and Blossom Culp and the Sleep of Death.
    See ISFDB.

References

  1. ↑ "Richard Peck". Random House [publisher]. Retrieved 2006-12-02.
  2. 1 2 3 "Newbery Medal and Honor Books, 1922–Present". Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC). ALA. Retrieved 2013-03-15.
  3. 1 2 "1990 Margaret A. Edwards Award Winner". Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). American Library Association (ALA).
      "Edwards Award". YALSA. ALA. Retrieved 2013-09-26.
  4. 1 2 Meyer, E. Duane. "A Morning With The 2001 Newbery Medal Winner, Richard W. Peck, DePauw '56". Delta Chi Quarterly, Fall/Winter 2001: pp. 6–7, 20.
  5. ↑ Brown, Jennifer M. "Richard Peck: A Long Way from Decatur". Publishers Weekly 250:29. July 21, 2003. Retrieved 2013-03-15.
  6. ↑ Talbert, Marc. "Richard Peck". The Horn Book Magazine. July/August 2001.
  7. ↑ "Richard Peck Papers". De Grummond Children's Literature Collection. University of Southern Mississippi. Retrieved 2013-03-15.
  8. ↑ "ALAN Award Recipients. The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents (ALAN). Retrieved 2013-03-15.
  9. ↑ "Awards & Honors: National Humanities Medals". National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Retrieved 2006-12-02.
  10. ↑ "Jeremiah Ludington Memorial Award". Educational Book & Media Association. Retrieved 2006-12-02.

Further reading

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