Robert Lypsyte
Robert Lipsyte was raised in New York City, a fat kid who became a writer while in middle school so he could kill off skinny kids in his stories. Once he lost weight, he realized that writing, even without killing skinny kids, was the most fun in the world. Lipsyte was a prize-winning sports-writer for the New York Times, and an Emmy-award winning host for a nightly public affairs show on PBS. But he has always loved best writing YA and Middle Grade novels.
His first YA was “The Contender.” His most recent book, “The Twinning Project,” is about two brothers raised on different planets who join up to save the world. Or at least themselves. He lives in Manhattan and Shelter Island with his wife, Lois B. Morris, and Milo, the dog.
When and why did you begin writing and/or illustrating children's books?
In 1965, while I was a boxing reporter for the New York Times, I wrote a novel, “The Contender,” about a teen-aged Harlem high school drop-out who finds discipline and confidence learning to box (without becoming a great boxer.). Ursula Nordstrom, who was inventing the genre at Harper & Row, made it into a YA novel. The reaction from readers, the sense that I had touched lives, was thrilling, to this day far surpassing the reaction to my adult fiction, non-fiction, and journalism. It’s why I’m still writing middle-grade and YA fiction.
What inspires or informs your writing and/or art?
I keep wanting to reach back and tell that fat, uncertain, bookish 13-year-old boy I was to hang in there, it’s going to work out if he just keeps reading and punching.
What do you want young readers to learn or take away from your work?
That reading is fun.
Is there an artist or writer you would consider and mentor and why?
I’ve had great editors as mentors – Ursula Nordstrom, Ferd Monjo, Charlotte Zolotow, Robert Warren, Ruth Katcher, and now Dinah Stevenson – and two towering YA writers as role models – Robert Cormier and Judy Blume.
Did you have any formal writing or art education, if so, where?
I was an English major in college, I have an M.S. in Journalism.
Do you have a favorite published book? If so, what makes it special?
I love them all for different reasons –to cite a few, “The Contender” was the first, “One Fat Summer” (soon to be a movie) was the most autobiographical, “Raiders Night,” was the toughest, and “The Twinning Project,” is the newest.