Will Hobbs
Will Hobbs
Will Hobbs is the author of nineteen novels for upper elementary, middle school and young adult readers, as well as two picture book stories. Hobbs credits his sense of audience to his fourteen years of teaching reading and English in southwest Colorado. When he turned to writing, he set his stories mostly in wild places he knew from firsthand experience. Hobbs has said he wants to “take young people into the outdoors and engage their sense of wonder.” Bearstone, his...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth22 August 1947
CountryUnited States of America
My seventeen years of teaching inform my sense of audience in every line I write.
My youngest brother and I went on a ten-day canoe trip in Bowron Provincial Park in British Columbia years ago. Believe it or not, we took only granola, thinking we'd be eating a lot of lake trout. Well, we neglected to bring along a net, and our fishing line was only 8-lb. test.
It's not a decision I make. All our guys have to look at as laying it on the line when they get the opportunity to do it. We need to do that up and down the lineup. There should definitely be a sense of urgency that we are playing for our playoff lives.
Seven of my novels take place in the Southwest, in the Four Corners area which has been my home since 1973. I know these mountains, rivers, mesas and canyons well, so it's been natural for me to draw on my own personal experiences here.
Pacing has become more important than ever, largely because of other media. I've always tried to start my stories out with a bang, something that will hook their attention.
I've been under the spell of the North ever since my childhood in Alaska. More and more, I've been returning to Alaska, and sometimes my adventures inspire a story.
I've been reading about Crazy Horse and Custer for a long, long time, and I thought that if I was going to write a story that took place in the Black Hills, I should find a way to include this history in it.
I was astounded to learn that Alaskan caves might be hiding secrets about the earliest people ever to enter the Americas. That's when I began to picture a story that would start with kayaking and lead into the caves.
I do have two wonderful awards from the Western Writers of America, one for 'Beardance' and the other for 'Far North.' The award is called the Spur, and the plaques really do have spurs on them!
For 'The Big Wander,' I probably had ten different outlines before I made myself start writing. I would sleep on each one, thinking it was wonderful, but I would always awake perceiving some flaw.
Researching and writing about the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897-98 was one of the most exciting and involving projects I've undertaken.
In a lot of cases, writers discover that the novel needs to begin later in the action than they'd first thought.
I love to read about the exploits of technical mountain climbers, but I've never done any vertical climbing.
'Ghost Canoe' takes place on the storm-tossed tip of Washington's Olympic Peninsula, where I spent a lot of time hiking and exploring.