As a kid, I wasn’t much of a reader and struggled with writing, but I was funny. I wrote a sarcastic poem about school for a fourth-grade class assignment. I wrote parodies of current movies to make light of teachers in high school. I wrote a bildungsroman story about a car trip taken with teen buddies the summer before our senior year.
My teacher said it showed real promise but my grammar and spelling were "hopeless." I was ego-centric enough to consider this a challenge and eventually put in my 40,000+ hours to read like crazy and improve my writing skills.
I completed a first novel during a junior college aboard in England, and a second novel as my creative thesis in grad school. Soon as I received my advanced degree, I hightailed it to New York City, dreaming that a publishing deal was imminent. It wasn't.
I didn’t give up and kept writing. I landed a job in children’s book publishing, leading to my first picture book winning a "Best Book For Children," which opened other doors. I was twenty-four years old. I published a dozen picture books, middle-grade and YA novels with leading publishers like Farrar Straus, MacMillan, Harper and Decorate/Dell. I was translated into foreign languages and was invited to speak and submit stories and essays to magazines and journals.
This part of my career came to a halt after several of my books were banned and censored. Two of my YA novels were targeted because they included "sex, drugs and rock-and-roll" -- things no teenager would be exposed to. One middle-grade novel was deemed inappropriate because it depicted a young girl artist living in poverty -- too "unsettling and controversial" for young minds.
I was constantly taken aback by adults underestimating kids’ intelligence and openness. And it perplexed me that anyone would think that reading a kids' book would torpedo years of parenting. I expected my publishers to defend me. Instead, they jettisoned me, fearful of what book-banners would to to the rest of their releases. After a decade in NYC and quickly diminishing fortunes, I returned to Denver, where I grew up.
I turned to playwriting and co-founded a theatre company. I lucked into a teaching gig at Metro State because the Chair of the English Department knew my books. I stayed there for a decade, creating new creative courses. I had two screenplays optioned, but never produced. I co-created two documentary films with my wife, Coleen Hubbard, a talented writer in her own right. Last year, I had a memoir published, Blood Flow: A Son's Forty-Year Journey to Understand His Father's Suicide.
I wrote and continue to write. I write because it involves problem-solving at the same time being playful.
larrybograd.com