Jack Gantos

 Jack Gantos was born in Norvelt, Pennsylvania. When he was seven, his family moved to Barbados. He attended British schools, where there was much emphasis on reading and writing. By fifth grade he had managed to learn 90 percent of what he knows to this very day. When the family moved to south Florida, Jack retreated to an abandoned bookmobile (three flat tires and empty of books) and read for most of the day. The seeds for Jack’s writing career were planted in sixth grade when he read his sister’s diary and decided he could write better than she could. He begged his mother for a diary and began to collect anecdotes he overheard at school, mostly from standing outside the teachers’ lounge and listening to their lunchtime conversations. Later, he incorporated many of these anecdotes into stories. In junior high he went to a school that had been converted from a former state prison. He thinks the inmates probably fled for their lives once the students showed up. In high school he decided to become a writer. While in college, he and an illustrator friend, Nicole Rubel, began working on picture books and published their first book, Rotten Ralph, in 1976. It was a success and the beginning of Jack’s career as a professional writer. Since then he has written over forty books including the JACK HENRY collections of short stories, the series of JOEY PIGZA novels, young adult novels, and the award winning memoir, HOLE IN MY LIFE.