James Howe - About the Author
James Howe doesn't believe that he was born to write. If you had asked him when he was seven or eight years old, he would have told you that he was born to ride. He wanted to be a jockey. That dream was dashed when his mother calculated that he would grow to be 6'4" as an adult. She was off by only two inches, Howe is now 6'2".
It was Howe's mother who suggested that he be a writer and for years he wrote for fun. While still in grade school he wrote plays, short stories and self-published newspapers. His favorite being a newsletter for a club he founded at age eleven: The Vampire Legion. Howe called the newsletter the Gory Gazette. In college he continued to write more plays and enjoyed writing critical papers for English and dramatic literature courses.
After college, Howe moved to New York City and became an actor and model, directed plays, and worked as a literary agent. He says, "All the while I continued to write for fun. And not once did I think that that was what I should be doing for a living. Writing was for pleasure! Work was work!"
In the mid-70s, Howe's late wife, Deborah, suggested that they write a children's book together based on a vampire rabbit he had dreamed up and named Bunnicula. They enjoyed the project so much that they went on to write a second story together, Teddy Bear's Scrapbook. After Deborah passed away from cancer in 1978, Howe wrote The Hospital Book based on his experiences and observations during her illness. He then went on to write a second book with the characters in Bunnicula and called it Howliday Inn. The Celery Stalked at Midnight, Nighty-Nightmare, Return to Howliday Inn, and Bunnicula Strikes Again! followed.
Writing full-time since 1981, Howe has a series of mysteries featuring a thirteen-year-old sleuth named Sebastian Barth; a series of short chapter books, loosely based on his own childhood, about two best friends named Pinky and Rex; and The Tales from the House of Bunnicula told from Howie the wirehaired dachshund's point of view. The successful author has written picture books, novels, nonfiction, adaptations of classic stories, and screenplays for movies and television.
The author states, "Over the years, I've learned that there's more to being a children's author than writing books. There's the thrill of seeing each idea develop from a lightbulb going on over your head to a book you can hold in your hand ('Imagine,' you think, 'this exists because I made it exist!') and the satisfaction of receiving letters from readers and meeting face-to-face. I've come to realize that there's more to writing than my own amusement. There's the reward of fun that's shared. And you can make a living at it! There's a moral to this story: Except when she's telling you to eat mushrooms, listen to your mother!"
James Howe lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. His daughter, Zooey, is an avid reader and talented young writer. His cat, Freckle, is a gifted napper whose other talents remain undisclosed.
-- Courtesy of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
