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MEET CHRISTOPHER CARLSON
by Bonnie O'Brian

What books influenced you most when you were growing up?

Christopher Carlson

I am grateful that my mother read to me from an early age, and instilled in me the love of reading.  I was greatly influenced by books of the imagination, such as WINNIE THE POOH and WIND IN THE WILLOWS, and the extraordinary books of E.B. White, STUART LITTLE and CHARLOTTE’S WEB.  Unusual narratives like THE SECRET GARDEN deeply touched me.  During elementary school, I avidly read two serials, THE HAPPY HOLLISTERS (which seems to have disappeared from the radar screen) and THE HARDY BOYS.

What was your first job when you graduated from college?

After graduating from Dartmouth College, I went to Boston and got a job on the ground crew at Fen way Park.  It was absolutely the right time to do it, as the Red Sox went to the World Series against the mighty Big Red Machine of Cincinnati, losing a heartbreaker in Game 7.  As an avid sports fan, it was trilling for me to go to the park every day and work on the green diamond field.  Getting that job set the theme for other jobs that I would do in my 20s, i.e. finding work that would allow me to enter worlds that I otherwise would not have known.

Was your first book accepted immediately?  Or did you experience a number of rejections?

My co-author Mark Jean and I spent a good year trying to get an agent to represent PUDDLEJUMPERS.  Finally we succeeded in procuring an agent, which in our case made a great difference, as our representative was able to find a publisher, Hyperion Books for Children, in very short order.  In fact, there were six publishers all quite interested in the book!

Do you do other types of writing – for example, educational, nonfiction, and magazine work?

I studied Screenwriting at the American Film Institute.  To this day, screenwriting is my primary occupation.  I write both original and book adaptations, and taught one semester at Loyola Mary Mount University.  I co-wrote the screenplay for HOMECOMING, adapted from the Cynthia Voigt novel, starring Anne Bancroft.  The script received a Writers Guild nomination for Best Adaptation.  It was a great pleasure to have the experience of writing a book, in that it offered an opportunity to explore what is going on in the character’s mind.  In screenwriting, you must follow a very strict format, which demands to know only what the character is saying and doing.  Although that may sound limiting, we as human beings are known by what we say and do, so as a writer you are forced to discipline yourself.

Have any of your books earned special recognition?

Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA) selected PUDDLEJUMPERS for its 2008 Top Shelf Fiction List, which represents the best books of the year.  Also, the Los Angeles Braille Institute selected PUDDLEJUMPERS as its featured book in 2009 Summer Reading program.  There are now Braille and audio editions in every Braille Library in the United States.

Do you enjoy researching or do you prefer working totally from your imagination?

In the case of PUDDLEJUMERS, the story comes purely from imagination.  I love visiting unknown worlds, and it was such a great pleasure creating a place that others might visit, too.  In other circumstances, such as doing my scripts, I’ve written real-life characters.  In those cases I take great delight in undertaking the research in order to know the person, and the times in which they lived.  In a way, that’s just like visiting another world!  Some of my historical writing includes a screenplay about the Japanese General Homma, who was held responsible for the Bataan Death March in WW2.  For that project, I read the entire transcript of his war crimes trial, some 37 volumes, plus journals written by the army lawyers.  I’ve also written documentary scripts, which require total adherence to what actually happened.

When you do school visits, what question do children ask you most?

Students are very curious where the idea for Puddlejumpers came from.   In our case, it began when Mark and I were talking about an Aesop’s Fable concerning little creatures living in a field.  I believe that ideas are very special gifts.  When an idea crosses the threshold into your mind,  it’s imperative to write it down right away.  Then the idea can percolate.  As writers, we never know when a small idea might become the seed for something great.

What are you working on now?  When do you expect to start submitting it to publishers?

I’m working on a story about a boy who gets lost from his family while exploring in the jungle and spends the day with a gorilla family.  It will be a book geared to young readers, with pictures.  The story is loosely based on my experiences observing mountain gorillas when I worked as a researcher at Dian Fossey’s camp in Rwanda.  I am including details about how gorillas behave in their jungle home, while creating a story that hopefully all can enjoy.  I hope to submit the story to publishers in the fall of 2009.