Hi, Tom,
I have to admit I didn’t know if you were going to stick with it! Some of that stuff was written when I was pretty young, and it’s not all prime material — although, don’t tell anyone I admitted that! Congratulations and thank you for your unwavering support for all (almost all) things Korman.
J. Rutherford Pierce was not invented by me. I wrote the grand finale of that 4-book series, and he existed right from Book #1. So he’s not my doing. Mr. Trump isn’t my doing either, but I’m trying to be fair and give him a chance.
You might be interested to know that the books you chose as your favorites are on my own list too, especially the 9 ON THE RUN and KIDNAPPED books, which really didn’t get the attention I felt they were entitled to. Oh well.
You might also want to know that the Scholastic Inc. people consider the best thing I ever wrote to be RESTART. I’m not sure I agree, but it’s nice all the same to know that someone thinks something was good! It’s not a Newbery, but I’ll take it!
Coming up: SUPERGIFTED, the sequel to UNGIFTED — in January. And right now I’m working on a sequel to SLACKER, which is, Scholastic assures me, setting the world on fire. I think they like the cover better than the book, but again, I’ll take it.
I hope you’ll keep in touch, Tom. This has been great.
Thanks again,
—-Gord—-