Christopher Paolini

by John Bankston

When best-selling author Carl Hiaasen purchased Eragon at a Montana grocery store, it had already sold more than 10,000 copies a remarkable achievement for a self-published novel and its author, Christopher Paolini, who was just a teenager at the time. After earning his high school diploma through a correspondence program, 15-year-old Paolini spent a year writing Eragon and another year revising it. The project became a family enterprise his sister and his parents edited the book, and his father's company published it. Since earning a major book contract with Hiaasen's publisher, Paolini has become a best-selling author in his own right, with Eragon and the sequels that followed attracting fans of all ages across the globe. Read about this remarkable success story of a teenager who found international publishing success in the new biography Christopher Paolini.

132 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

It’s no one’s fault that I love the dark.

At six-years old, I enlisted my father’s help in constructing a model skull. Two years later, I talked my mother into buying a life-sized skeleton poster at a novelty shop. I tacked it up during the day. After the sun set, moonlight scattered through my blinds made its bleached bones shimmer and dance.

I was an only child growing up in a remote Vermont cabin. My imagination spun tales of horror, stories that grew in intensity after my babysitter read selections from her dog-eared copy of John Saul’s Suffer the Children. I don’t blame her for my love of the dark either, I was already ten after all and by then a hardcore aficionado of all things that go bump in the night.

By sixth grade I was reading my own scary books, from classics like Dracula and The Fall of the House of Usher to ‘Salem’s Lot and The Shining. By middle school, I was watching horror on screen delighting in the scares delivered by Kubrick’s The Shining and Carpenter’s Halloween.

Today I still love King, his progeny Joe Hill and YA writers like Amy Lukavics and Danielle Vega.

I’ve been getting paid to write for most of my adult life. I’ve written for online publications; I’ve ghostwritten novels and business guides. I’ve even authored over 150 nonfiction books for younger readers. Still, my fiction passion is horror and thrillers with horror elements. That’s why I’m excited to announce the Spring Publication date for The Academy series, a trilogy about happens when a young girl goes missing and her dormmate begins looking into why so many teens have disappeared or been murdered near their elite but isolated Vermont music school. There are also ghosts.

Reviews

[Mona Randall · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great review of this young writer's life and his success but with a touch of several critics' opinions. I most enjoyed that he and his family are close knit and very supportive of each other.