Gary Paulsen was born on May 17, 1939. He was never a great student but developed a love of reading at an early age. He would spend hours in the basement reading one book after another. When Paulsen was 14 he ran away  to travel with a carnival where he learned to love adventure. He first realized that he would become a writer when he was a satellite technician for an aerospace firm in California. One night he walked away and never returned. The next year he spent in Hollywood working as a proofreading, and writing his own material every night. After California, Paulsen moved to northern Minnesota where he rented a cabin by a lake, and finished his first novel by the end of the winter. At this time Paulsen started running dogs, which eventually ran to dog racing and he ran the 1983 and 1985. After finishing the race the second time he suffered an attack of angina forcing him to give up his dogs. He started using the same time and commitment that he had once used for racing, on writing spending 20 hour days obsessively writing. His belief in young people is what drives Paulsen to write. He had an intense desire to tap into the human spirit and to get readers to observe and care about the world around them. He has written more then 175 books and over 200 articles and short stories for children and adults. His novels, Hatchet, Dogsong, and the Winter Room were Newbery Honor Books, and appear frequently on the best books list of the American Library Association. Gary Paulsen is married to Ruth Wright Paulsen, who is an artist and illustrated several of his books. They divide their time between their home in New Mexico and in a boat in the Pacific.