| John
Saul was born in Pasadena, California on February 25, 1942, and grew up
in Whittier where he graduated from Whittier High School in 1959. He attended
several colleges—Antioch, in Ohio, Cerritos, in Norwalk, California,
Montana State University and San Francisco State College, variously majoring
in anthropology, liberal arts, and theater, but never obtaining a degree.
After leaving
college, he decided the best thing for a college dropout to do was become
a writer, and spent the next fifteen years working in various jobs while
attempting to write a book someone would want to publish. Should anyone
ever want to write a novel concerning the car-rental industry or the travails
of temporary typists, John can provide excellent background material.
Those years
garnered him a nice collection of unpublished manuscripts, but not a lot
of money. Eventually he found an agent in New York, who spent several
years sending his manuscripts around, and trying to make the rejection
slips sound hopeful. Then, in 1976, one of his manuscripts reached Dell,
who didn't want to buy it, but asked if he'd be interested in writing
a psychological thriller. He put together an outline, and crossed his
fingers.
At that point,
things started getting bizarre. His agent decided the outline had all
the makings of a best-seller, and so did Dell. Gambling on a first novel
by an unknown author, they backed the book with television advertising
(one of the first times a paperback original was promoted on television)
and the gamble paid off. Within a month Suffer the Children appeared
on all the best-seller lists in the country and made the #1 spot in Canada.
Subsequently all of his books have made the best-seller lists
and have been published worldwide. All of his books have been published by one imprint or another of Random House.
In addition
to his work as novelist, John is also interested in the theater. He has
acted, and as a playwright has had several one-act plays produced in Los
Angeles and Seattle, and two optioned in New York. One of his novels was
produced by Gerber Productions Company and M.G.M. as a C.B.S. movie and
currently one of his novels is in development.
John served
on the Expansion Arts Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts. He
is actively involved with the development of other writers, and has been a lecturer
at the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference and the Maui Writers Conference
and received the Life Time Achievement Award from the Northwest Writers
Conference. John is also a trustee and Vice President of The Chester Woodruff
Foundation (New York), a philanthropic organization.
John lives
part-time in the Pacific Northwest, and also maintains a residence on the Big Island of Hawaii. He
currently enjoys motor-homing, travel and golf. He is an avid reader,
bridge player, golfer and loves to cook.
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