Filling each blank page

 

“Blankpaper has always inspired me.” – Daniel Handler
Born in San Francisco on this date in 1970, Handler is a writer, musician and journalist perhaps best known under the pen name LemonySnicket, after publishing his 13-book children's series A Series of UnfortunateEvents and  4-book series All the Wrong Questions under the pseudonym.    Handler also has published or contributed to a number of adult novelsunder his own name, including his first book The Basic Eight andthe 2019 book Bottle Grove.
Handler began writing A Series ofUnfortunate Events – about three orphaned children who experienceincreasingly terrible events following the death of their parents and burningof their home – in 1998 after struggling to get The Basic Eight published.  “Myfirst novel took almost six years to sell and was rejected 37 times in theinterim, and then finally sold for the smallest amount of money my literaryagent had ever negotiated for a work of fiction,” he said.    
The Lemony Snicket books,however, were an immediate and worldwide success, already selling some 70 million copies in41 languages and spawning a film, a video game, assorted merchandise, amainstream movie, and a Netflix television series.    “I kind of always think my work isunfilmable," Handler said.  "When I meet people who are interested in filming it, I'm alwaysstunned.”