Gwyn Haller asked Chris Bohjalian:

I have six grandsons. A couple of these grandsons are voracious readers and the others are active readers--a couple of them write. All the boys are between 12 and 17. Suddenly, they are the size of men, and the writers have to keep that secret or on a back burner because they're expected to be all about sports. Did you experience any resistance to your career as a writer as a boy/teen?

Chris Bohjalian Well, I grew up in the Mesozoic Era: There were Pac Man and Missile Command, but sure as heck no X-Box games, smart phones, or the Internet.

But I did play football and baseball in high school -- and read plenty.

I am not sure there needs to be a disconnect between sports and reading.

Or writing!

Perhaps the key is finding books that appeal to young athletes.

Heaven knows I read plenty of sports books.

I still have my collection of essays on pitchers by Pat Jordan, a great Sports Illustrated journalist even now.

And I was amassing rejection slips for my own writing soon after I started college.

So, perhaps sports writing is the secret: it combines a love of sports with a love of writing.

But all of this is WAY above my pay grade. The reality is that I have NO idea what I'm talking about.

Still. . .thanks for writing. Good luck, Gwyn!

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