Rick Riordan

So I have been a huge Rick Riordan fan since middle school. Last year my teacher asked all of us to pick our favorite writer and write an essay on them.
Rick was born June 5th, 1964 at San Antonio Texas. His mom was a musician and an artist, and his dad was a ceramicist. Rick attended Alamo High school in San Antonio Texas. He started writing when he was in middle school, it was mostly short stories, and poetry. When he was 13 he submitted his first short story for publication, his request was declined. In middle school he started reading allot of books on mythology, fantasy, and science fiction. When he got to High school he started editing for his schools newsletter. Later in High school he got in trouble for posting an underground newspaper that made fun of the school, especially the losing football team. He said later when they figured out who was posting it they egged his car.
He began college at North Texas State because he wanted to be a musician and they had the best music program. When he decided that being a musician was not the path that he wanted to take, he transferred to University of Texas at Austin. While taking classes he worked for 3 years at a camp, that’s where he got the idea of Camp Half Blood. A few years later he graduated with a double major in English and History. He got certified to teach English and History from UT San Antonio. His first full time job was teaching middle school in New Braunfels, Texas.
After he taught at that school for a couple of years him and his wife moved to Florida, where him and his wife had two sons, Haley and Patrick. He got a job teaching at Presidio Hill school. They lived at San Francisco for 8 years, when they decided to move back home to San Antonio. He got another job teaching English and Social studies at Saint Mary’s Hall for grades 6th through 8. While teaching there they rewarded him with the first master teacher reward. He worked at that school for 6 years when he decided to quit and become a full time writer.
Before him and his family moved back to Texas, Riordan had a yearning to move back to Texas. So it put him in the mood to write his first mystery novel based off his hometown San Antonio. The novel entitled Big Red Tequila featured the main character Tres Nvarre, a private eye PH. D in English. This book won him three rewards for best mystery genre. Riordan was presented the Edgar, Anthony and Shamus awards for Big Red Tequila. This book is what set off his passion for writing, and gave him the idea that he missed writing.
After they moved back to San Antonio their son Haley got diagnosed with ADHD. When his son was little he would always read him allot of stories on mythology and the main character Percy, until they ran out of stories to tell so after he got diagnosed with ADHD. He decided to start writing a story based off Percy but add a twist to it. He got the idea of Camp Half Blood from a camp that he worked at part time during college. After finishing it, The Lightening Thief was published in 2005. Rick said on an interview that he didn’t expect for the book to intrigue readers as much as it did, it has sold over 1.2 million copies.
After The Lightening Thief exploded with popularity it received a reward for the best book of 2005 and New York Times praised it and said that its “perfectly paced, with electrifying moments chasing each other like heartbeats.” Rick wrote 4 other books after The Lightening Thief and all of them gained allot of rewards, but in 2009 the director Chris Columbus got ahold of Rick and discussed making his book The Lightening thief into a movie. In 2010 the movie was released, and it didn’t go as well as they wanted it to. In 2013 they released The Sea of Monsters movie 2 and it bombed out even worse than The Sea of Monsters. They decided not to make anymore because the movies really failed. Sense the movies didn’t go over well, Rick decided to begin another book series, but what he had no clue is that his new series would go over even better than The Percy Jackson series.
Rick told us that on the end of The Last Olympian that he wasn’t going to be writing about Percy Jackson and his friends anymore, but in 2010 published the book The Lost Heroes. It includes all of the other characters from the Percy Jackson series, and many new. He begins the first book with Jason waking up on a bus unable to remember who or where is. He is sitting next to his girlfriend piper and his best friend Leo who call him by his name. all three of them are on a field trip to the Grand Canyon and something is waiting there for them. This book has sold over 2.5 million copies and has won many awards.
Rick seen how well this book sold, and he decided to keep going with these characters. He wrote 4 other books that go along with The Lost heroes series. This series sold more than double compares to The Percy Jackson and Olympians series. Now that Rick finished off The Heroes Of Olympus series, he is working on a new series and is still a full time writer. He is said to still be living in San Antonio Texas with his wife and two sons. He said in an interview that he still has many book ideas left to write. This year he is planning on writing the second book to The Sword Of Summer series, and a new series called The Trials Of Apollo. I along with others are looking forward to reading his future books.