reply

Hi, 5th Grade Sunrise Book Club — Mrs. Crook, Maci, Anna, Jillian, Jahred, Jaliyah, Ava, Kate, & Brightyn,

Thanks for posting. I’m so pleased that LINKED was a hit with the class! I’ll try to answer all your questions.

1. No story ever develops along the way. I plan very thoroughly before I ever write a single word. Simply put, I plan the ending, and then write towards it.

2. I didn’t knowingly use any names that matched the Tennessee school people. The thing that impressed me the most was the fact that all their activities took place because they were having trouble visualizing the number 6,000,000. In terms of lives, it seemed an overwhelming number to me too.

3. I never thought of any name other than Lincoln, or Linc for short. I never specifically named the family’s religion, but I considered that they were probably members of a Protestant church. My family is Jewish, which is why I was so familiar with studying for a Bar Mitzvah!

4, I don’t know that I “connected” with anyone, but perhaps it was Dana, because she was the only Jewish person in the whole school. (Until Linc decided he was Jewish too!)

5. It took about 8 months to complete the manuscript until I felt it was ready for my editor.Then he made some requests, and I polished it up, which took another 6 or 8 weeks. So it was the better part of a year, really.

6. LINKED was the hardest. It’s just as hard to pick a favorite among my books as it is amog my 3 children! I really am proud of the 3 books in the MASTERMINDS series. And a lot of reviewers say that my Book #100, THE  FORT, is perhaps an example of my best work.

7. Sometimes a trait, or a phrase of someone I know, even myself, makes it into one of my books. But my stuff is basically fiction, which means I make it all up.

Thanks for your good wishes for LINKED and the Mark Twain Award. It has won quite a few awards so far, but that one would really be great!

Thanks, people. I hope you’ll go on to read more of my work.               —–Gordon Korman—–