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Cormier and Author Identity

"English Students go right to top with their questions" The Advertiser

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This newspaper article describes a speaker-phone, long-distance, live interview with Cormier and several classes of teens in a Lafayette, Louisiana high school. Authorial identity is thematically relevant as students ask questions about him as both a living author and a real person, within the context of his discussion of and answering questions concerning his novel I Am the Cheese, that the youth had recently read.

"Interview Robert Cormier" Ohio Journal of the English Language Arts

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In this wide-ranging interview Cormier, discusses several topics related to his writing process, from two of his own writing role models (Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe) to the particulars of how organizes his work time and revises his drafts. He also devotes some time to his newly-released novel Heroes and the theme of identity that infiltrates his writing. Later joined by his editor Craig Virden, they discuss the author-editor relationship using Tenderness as an example.

"Robert Cormier Heroes" Auditorium Guest Control Panel

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This is a transcript of an online discussion panel with Cormier facilitated by Barnes and Noble. Although the Q&A focuses on the then-recently-released Heroes, participants also asked questions about censorship, Cormier's writing practices and experience, and the influence of his French-Canadian background on his work.

RELATED LINKS:

Author Visit Program: How to Host an Author Visit (with separate sections for PreK-12). Scholastic Publishers offers good advice to teachers and others looking to host an author visit with students. Today, there are free video teleconferencing platforms that make such exchanges more tangible and available for groups.

The Author and Editor Relationship: Professional Sparring Partners. In this article by Kristin Houghton (2015 Nov. 23) in The Huffington Post the author describes the necessity for careful and cordial listening and transparent action.