'Sharing voice and emotion'

 

“Choosingthe narrator for a first-person story like Downriver is a crucial decision because the voice hasto be one the reader wants to listen to, and the voice has to be a match forthe emotion you want the story to carry” – Will Hobbs

 

Hobbs, born in Pittsburgh on thisdate in 1947, grew up in a military family, moving often.  When his dad was stationed in Alaska, he saidhe fell in love with mountains, rivers, fishing, baseball, and books.  After college and marriage, he settled in thesouthwest mountains of Colorado where he began teaching and writing.

 

The author of 20 novels for Tweens and Young Adults, as well as two picture book stories, Hobbscredits his sense of audience to his years of teaching, and his sense of place to writing about places he knows from firsthandexperience.

 

Hobbs has said he wants his writing to takeyoung people into the outdoors and engage their sense of wonder.  Many of his novels take place in the FourCorners (the area where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizon and Utah share a borderand which has been his home since 1973.)  “I know these mountains, rivers, mesas and canyons well, so it's beennatural for me to draw on my own personal experiences here.”

As for putting his reader into the action, he said, “Onceyou're imagining being the main character, and you're having the conversationsand actually being there, the magic in fiction writing takes over.”

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