Rick Riordan

Last Friday, Jill (the Children's Librarian) and I went to an outing for librarians, where we got to see Rick Riordan! If you don't know who he is, he's the author of the Percy Jackson series plus the first author of the 39 Clues book: Maze of Bones. He also writes adult mysteries, which I need to get my hands on.

He gave a presentation that included several amusing stories:

This is his first rejection letter: at the age of nine. His mom framed it. She still has it.










This is the manuscript for his first novel. 14 seemed to be the magic number because that's both the number of drafts to make it into his manuscript and also the number of rejections before it found a home. Here's the cover art for that book - it's the first in an adult series.




He wrote this book because his son made him. It started after he told his son all the Greek mythology stories he knew. His son pestered him for more. When he said he didn't know any more, his son demanded that he make one up. Here's the first cover for the Lightning Thief. It didn't make the cut - too boring.

He sent in the Lighting Thief under a pseudonym for fear that his younger readers would find his adult series. That also changed. When he realized it would be a 5 book series, he knew that he had to give up teaching middle school. There was no way to write two books/year as it hard enough writing one while teaching.


Here we are together after he signed my book and t-shirt (never washing again)









Here he is with Jill








I also won a raffle which included: 2 play aways (giving to the library), one 39 Clues back pack (Will be a summer prize) and 2 copies of the first three Percy Jackson books all signed (Jill and I are each taking one and the rest will be prizes for the summer.)

I also have a picture of Rick posing with the 39 Clues book which I will be making into a READ poster shortly.

It was a great day! He's awesome - really nice and funny!