Gordon Korman was born on October 23, 1963 in Montreal, Quebec in Canada (gordonkorman.com). He was an only child, and graduated from high school in Toronto (gordonkorman.com). He earned a fine arts degree from New York University and currently lives on Long Island, New York with his family (scholastic.com).
 | Korman wrote his first book as a 7th grade language arts assignment. He had
served as the class monitor for the Scholastic Arrow Book Club, so he
decided to send in the manuscript. Two years later, Scholastic
published the novel: This Can't be Happening at Macdonald Hall
(scholastic.com). By this point, Korman was hooked. |
Inspiration and Encouragement
Korman especially liked books by classic middle grades novelists such as Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary (kimlitlibrary, 2012). Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume was especially meaningful to him and somewhat inspired him when he wrote his first novel (kimlitlibrary, 2012).
In this segment of a Scholastic interview, Korman discusses how supportive his parents and teachers were of his writing.
Korman draws on his experiences growing up in Canada for some of his books, but mostly he relies on his vivid imagination and extensive research (scholastic.com). Though some of his characters are based on people he knows or has met, most of his characters are purely fictional (scholastic.com).
