ALAN Workshop-Gary Paulsen
ALAN Workshop
Paulsen is often asked where the humor in his books come from, and he replies that no part of his writing career hasn't been funny. Even when it wasn't funny while it was happening, it was funny afterward. The very concept of writing or the writing business is funny. Paulsen finds the humor in disaster and emergencies. The funny things happened first and then the books came. A series of mistakes that turn out OK after he's just lived through it them. After living through them, later--a month or two a year or two--the story finds its way into a book.
Paulsen tells the story of the first time he took his dogs on a night run. One of the dogs got a skunk. Paulsen grabbed the skunk by the tail and got sprayed. He began running around the dogs, vomiting. The sled dogs were trying to catch the vomit because their parents had fed them by regurgitation.
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Last Updated April 11, 2011
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