{"id":202,"date":"2015-11-19T16:26:13","date_gmt":"2015-11-19T21:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acutabove.wpengine.com\/?p=202"},"modified":"2015-12-03T15:36:54","modified_gmt":"2015-12-03T20:36:54","slug":"author-is-still-a-kid-at-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=202","title":{"rendered":"Author is still a kid at heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emelia Johnston<\/strong>
\nWHMS Press
\nWest Hills MS
\n1st Place
\nMS Division, News Writing
\nPersonality Profile<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

You may think that books and\u00a0authors are boring, but this one\u2019s\u00a0got a story.<\/p>\n

James Preller grew up in a house\u00a0in Wantagh, N.Y., the youngest of\u00a0seven kids. He went to college in\u00a0Oneonta, N.Y., and graduated in\u00a01983. Preller was a waiter for a\u00a0year, then worked at Scholastic in\u00a0New York, and is now an author,\u00a0still looking back to his childhood\u00a0for inspiration.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I write books for\u00a0children, I often call upon these\u00a0childhood memories, that person\u00a0who I was, and what I discover is\u00a0that he\u2019s always there, whispering\u00a0in my ear, that 10-year-old kid.\u00a0Still me,\u201d said Preller on a visit to\u00a0West Hills.<\/p>\n

Preller really enjoys being\u00a0an author. With over 80 books\u00a0written by him, he has a lot to\u00a0be proud of. \u201cI\u2019m probably most\u00a0proud of \u201cBystander\u201d right now,\u00a0but I\u2019m also proud of the \u201cJigsaw\u00a0Jones\u201d series too. I\u2019m also really\u00a0proud of \u201cScary Tales\u201d because, I\u00a0think they\u2019re fun to read and some\u00a0kids don\u2019t like books, so I think\u00a0that the \u201cScary Tales\u201d books are\u00a0gonna be that high interest, exiting story thats kind of short and easy\u00a0to read.\u201d<\/p>\n

Preller believes that everyone\u00a0is unique, and that no one has the\u00a0same imagination as someone\u00a0else. \u201c As an author, you really\u00a0do make something that nobody\u00a0else in the world could have done.\u00a0\u201cWhen I look at my books, I say,\u00a0\u2018I did that,\u2019 and if I didn\u2019t do it, it\u00a0would have never had happened,\u201d\u00a0said Preller.<\/p>\n

Preller writes many different\u00a0kinds of books including, the\u00a0\u201cJigsaw Jones\u201d series which are\u00a0mysteries, some serious books like\u00a0\u201cBystander,\u201d scary books like the\u00a0\u201cScary Tales\u201d series, and he is hoping\u00a0to write a nonfiction book on\u00a0a distant planet soon! For a long\u00a0time, Preller wrote sports books\u00a0about NBA and NFL all stars, but\u00a0after a time, they become dated, \u00a0because some of the players retire.\u00a0That\u2019s why he stopped writing\u00a0that type of books.<\/p>\n

He also wrote books when he\u00a0didn\u2019t even use his own name. \u201cI\u00a0once wrote a book for Shaquille\u00a0O\u2019Neal called \u2018Shack and the\u00a0Beanstalk.\u2019 It doesn\u2019t have my\u00a0name in it. It says \u2018By Shaquille\u00a0O\u2019Neal,\u2019 but I actually wrote it,\u201d\u00a0said Preller.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes I\u2019ll get some fan\u00a0mail that\u2019ll say, \u2018I never thought I\u00a0liked books, and I\u2019ve never read\u00a0a book before, but I just read\u00a0yours, and I loved it,\u2019 and that\u2019s the\u00a0proudest, happiest moment, when\u00a0I help someone become a book\u00a0lover!\u201d says Preller.<\/p>\n

Preller has visited many different\u00a0schools and libraries, enjoying\u00a0the smiles on kids faces because of\u00a0his own writing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Emelia Johnston WHMS Press West Hills MS 1st Place MS Division, News Writing Personality Profile<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,39],"tags":[48,24],"class_list":["post-202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-nw","category-personalityprofile","tag-48","tag-divisionms","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Kelsey Parkinson","author_link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?author=3"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6K0n6-3g","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}