Paul Zindel
(b. 1936)

As a child, Paul Zindel took any acting role he could find, beginning with a comic role in a play presented at a local church when he was 11 years old. His acting roles, through high school, turned into what he considered comic embarrassments. During his high school years, though, he began to write plays, encouraged by classmates who thought he had a "strange sense of humor." His play writing continued as he recuperated from tuberculosis at a sanitarium in Kushaqua, New York. He recovered and finished high school. He then studied chemistry at a local college in New York City where he enrolled in a creative writing class. The teacher, Edward Albee, was soon to become a well-known playwright and Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist. Albee also became Paul Zindel's writing mentor. Zindel also writes screenplays, television scripts, and novels. He writes for young adults because, he says, "A great part of me inside is still very young."

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