

Little towns, being on the road in places where people generally don't go. I've spent a number of years looking for treasure, going into

Past a friend and I traveled around the world taking back roads, exploring

MOOSER: In a couple weeks I'm going out to Utah to explore the desert. I still spend parts of my summers going on adventures. Things that were on the fringe of reality. I loved pirates, ghosts, weird and strange I can only say why they appealed to me as a boy which In the backs of my books are jokes,įreaky facts, things that kids like. MOOSER: My books tend to be for boys because I write easy-to-read adventure OLSWANGER: Do you specifically target your books for boys? I have never written anything much for anybody I'd say most of my children's books tend to be for second to fifth I've written nonfiction and I do an occasional pictureīook. STEPHEN MOOSER: I write humorous adventure stories. As president, Stephen has seen the SCBWI grow from less than ten to more than 10,000 members from all over the world.Īnna Olswanger interviewed Stephen Mooser at a Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators national conference in Los Angeles.ĪNNA OLSWANGER: You write a wide range of books. SCBWI publishes a bimonthly bulletin holds a yearly national conference and regional ones all over the country provides more than 20 publications to its members on topics ranging from agents to small press publishers and offers many other member services, including awards, grants, and discount programs.

In 1971 Stephen co-founded the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and it remains the only national organization serving writers and illustrators in the field of children’s literature. He has written in every genre: picture books ( The Ghost with the Halloween Hiccups), nonfiction ( Into the Unknown: Nine Astounding Stories), interactive science fiction ("Which Way" books), novels ( The Hitchhiking Vampire), and chapter books ( The Creepy Creatures Club books). He has since written a number of major reading programs, including ones for Ginn, American Book Company, and Harcourt Brace, Jovanovich.īut most readers know Stephen for his trade books, now more than fifty, which began with the publication of 101 Black Cats (Scholastic) in 1975 and include the just-published Young Maid Marian and the Secret of Sherwood Forest (Meadowbrook). When he began writing books for children, he did it with a bang: in the space of five years he wrote 250 books, K-4, for the SWRL Reading Program published by Ginn. Stephen Mooser has been writing full-time since 1970. To support this site Men, Boys, and Books: A Conversation with Stephen Mooser Home page | More
