SEPTEMBER'S AUTHOR by Sharon Tregenza

JACK PRELUTSKY

Jack Prelutsky was born on September 8th 1940 in Brooklyn, New York. His father, Charles Prelutsky, was an electrician, and his mother Dorothea, a homemaker.

He attended local public schools in the Bronx but hated it. He also claims to have hated poetry when he was younger. He says that in elementary school he “had a teacher who, in retrospect, did not like poetry herself. The syllabus told her she had to recite a poem once a week. She would pick a boring poem from a boring book and read it in a boring voice, looking bored while she was doing it."

Because of his musical talents, he went to The High School of Music and Art and was happy there. He graduated in 1958 and attended Hunter College to study philosophy and psychology. He failed English three times before dropping out.

Prelutsky loved to draw imaginary animals, and a friend encouraged him to send them to a publisher in New York. He wrote the poems to go with the drawings at the last minute. He was astonished that they wanted his work; not the drawings that took him six months to complete, but the poems which took two hours. They appeared in his first book, A Gopher in the Garden and Other Animal Poems, in 1967. 

He has now written over 50 collections.

Prelutsky married his wife Carolynn in 1979. They met when he was on a book tour in Albuquerque, she was a children's librarian and showed him around town. He says it was love at first sight.  They currently live in Seattle where he has a studio with a writing desk, computer, lots of books, and his collection of miniature frogs.

Five fun facts about Jack Prelutsky:

1. Before becoming a writer he was a busboy, a potter and a door-to- door salesman.

2. In the late 1960s, while singing in coffee houses he became a friend of Bob Dylan.

3. He asked his wife to marry him on the first day they met.

4. He collects miniature frogs.

5. He was the first Children's Poet Laureate.

Email: sharontegenza@gmail.com

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