Rick Riordan

This is a picture of Rick Riordan. (teenlibris)

Rick Riordan is my hero because even though his first try to get a book published failed he never gave up. Also, he wrote my favorite book series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

Rick Riordan was born on June 5, 1964 in San Antonio, Texas. He went to Alamo Heights High School in San Antonio. Rick won third place in his state for the UIL feature writing. He worked as an editor for his school newspaper. Also, he made an underground newspaper that made fun of the losing football team and the school. Later, he began college at North Texas State for the music program because he thought he wanted to be a guitar player. He then transferred to the University of Texas at Austin. Rick graduated with double majors in both history and English. Afterwards, he taught in the San Antonio School District.

The first book Rick remembers reading for fun was The Lord of the Rings and he says that he probably read it ten times. He really liked Norse and Greek mythology since middle school. He mostly liked science fiction and fantasy books, and he got into mysteries in college. Both of Rick's parents were teachers. His mom was a musician and an artist, and his dad was a ceramicist, which means he made things with clay. Rick started writing in middle school. He first submitted a story for it to be published when he was only 13, but it wasn't published. The first stories of his that were published were in the USTA literary magazine.

When Rick was in college he worked at a summer camp called Camp Capers as a music director. He got the idea for Camp Half-Blood from Camp Capers. His first full-time job was teaching in New Braunfels Middle School in Texas. After this, he and his wife, Becky, moved to San Francisco. They lived there for eight years and Rick taught at Presido Hill School. While there, they had two sons named Patrick and Haley. With the kids, they moved back to San Antonio. Rick then taught at Saint Mary's Hall for six years. He taught history and English at private and public schools in the San Francisco Bay area and in Texas for 15 years. He was awarded with Saint Mary's Hall's first Master teacher award in 2002. He stopped teaching to be a full-time writer. He now lives with his wife, two sons, dog, and two cats. In his free-time, Rick likes to play guitar, swim, read, or travel. He also plays Wii games or World of Warcraft with his kids.

Rick is the author of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, a #1 bestselling New York Times book for kids. He also wrote the multi-award winning Tres Navarre mystery series for adults. One of his adult fiction books, The Edgard, The Anthony, and the Shamus, won the top three national awards for the mystery genre. It was in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and the Mary Higgins Clark Mystery Magazine. The Percy Jackson series is about a 12-year-old boy who finds out that he is a son of the Sea God, Poseidon. In 2005, The Lightning Thief was a New York Times Notable book. The Sea of Monsters was a BookSense national bestseller, a Publisher's Weekly, and a Child Magazine best book for kids in 2006. The Titan's Curse made the series a #1 national bestseller. The Battle of the Labyrinth had a first printing of one million copies. The Last Olympian ended the series with a first printing of 1.2 million copies and was a major national bestseller. Rick was also the author of 39 Clues: The Maze of Bones, which was a #1 New York Times bestseller.

Rick is my hero because he has written so many great books, and some of them are my favorite ones, too. His books always have a mystery in them and there's usually a twist at the end. Also, he didn't give up being a writer and he only had one book that wasn't published.