Meet Gordan Korman

author of Unplugged

Is it true that you wrote your first book at age 12?

Yes! It was my seventh-grade English assignment. There was a staffing shuffle at our school, and the track and field ended up our teacher for creative writing. He just told us to work on whatever we wanted, and that’s how I wrote my first book. So I guess you could say I’ve been a middle-grade author since I was a middle grader.

Where did you get the idea for Unplugged?

My editor goes on a retreat every year to a super-crunchy wellness center, where all the food is health food, there’s exercise 24-7, and every form of technology is banned. She loves it, but I couldn’t help thinking how tough it would be for a group of kids to spend an entire summer that way – especially the unplugged part. 

Who is the lizard on the Unplugged cover?

That’s Needles, a baby lizard the characters rescue from a bubbling hot spring and adopt as a pet. Without Needles to take care of, most of the kids would never make it through an entire summer at the Oasis of Mind and Body Wellness.

Is Fuego a real tech company?

Okay, I made it up. Jett Baranov is the son of the founder of the world’s largest technology company. Can you imagine if you were Silicon Valley royalty and you were sent to a place where you can’t have a phone or a computer, or even look at a TV screen?

Have you written 100 books yet?

Not quite. Unplugged is book #97, so if I keep up this pace, I should publish my 100th book in the second half of 2022. It’s sounds pretty crazy until I remind myself that I’ve been writing for more than three-quarters of my life!

About Gordon

Gordon Korman is the author of more than ninety books for kids and young adults, most recently War Stories and Unplugged. He is a full-time writer and speaker, with over thirty-five million copies of his novels in print in thirty-three languages. He lives with his family in Long Island, New York. You can find him online at www.gordonkorman.com.