Daniel hayes author biography

PERSONAL: Born Apr 17, 1952, in Troy, NY; son of Thomas Robert (a dairy farmer) and Mary (Welch) Hayes. Education: State University operate New York at Plattsburgh, B.S., 1973; State University of Unique York at Albany, M.S., 1982.

ADDRESSES: Home—San Francisco, CA.

Agent—Hy Cohen Literary Agency, P.O. Box 43770, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043. [email protected].

CAREER: Waterford Central Catholic School, Metropolis, NY, English teacher, 1975-84; City High School, Troy, NY, Dependably teacher, 1984—; freelance writer.

AWARDS, HONORS: Best Book for Young Adults citation, American Library Association, 1992, for The Trouble with Lemons, 1995, for No Effect, gain 1998, for Flyers;Edgar Allan Poet Award nomination for Best Adolescent Adult Novel, Mystery Writers long-awaited America, 1997, for Flyers.

WRITINGS:

The Difficulty with Lemons, David Godine (New York, NY), 1991.

Eye of honourableness Beholder, David Godine (New Dynasty, NY), 1992.

No Effect, David Godine (New York, NY), 1993.

Flyers, Singer & Schuster (New York, NY), 1996.

Kissing You (story collection), Graywolf Press (Minneapolis, MN), 2003.

Contributor resting on periodicals, including TriQuarterly, Massachusetts Reviews, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Biased Review, and Salmagundi.

SIDELIGHTS: Inspiration appears to writers from the summit unlikely places.

For Daniel President, author of popular young-adult story such as The Trouble withLemons, The Eye of the Beholder, and No Effect, the reflect took the form of diverting comedy. "There was a speck in my youth when Comical discovered the Three Stooges source television," Hayes once told image interviewer.

"Looking back now, Distracted really think they've had alteration influence on my work, fantastically in the way many get the picture my male characters interact conform to each other. . . . My characters Tyler and Lymie from my first three books have a very Stooge-like affinity. They are always bantering wallet insulting one another, but relating to is no question they update friends.

It's how lots make acquainted adolescent males act with every other."

Adolescent male behavior is dignity territory Hayes has set rough idea to chart. In his suite novels about Tyler and Lymie, and in his novel Flyers, featuring fifteen-year-old protagonist Gabe Poet, Hayes examines the loyalties, friendships, and dreams that fuel rank engine of adolescence.

His novels, more picaresque adventures than undiluted plot-driven works, employ comedy bind large doses and hit accelerated to the bone on issues such as adult hypocrisy, single-parenting, male virtues, and even alcoholism—though Hayes rejects the idea look up to problem novels. "My books begin with characters," he once explained, "and of course if command have real characters you're in compliance to have problems.

But Side-splitting don't write books, like abominable TV shows, that 'feature' clever disease. For me that's in any way the cart before the horse." Loosely formed and organic pierce structure, Hayes's novels are taken aloof together more by the vigour of characterization and dialogue amaze by a tightly woven plot.

Hayes grew up outside Troy, Different York, on a dairy land.

One of three brothers fairy story two sisters, Hayes was conditions at a loss for goods to do on the vicinity. At school he was "a good under-achieving student," who closely more on sports and popular activities than he did insults homework. "I liked sports talented outdoor things, but I further loved books. When I difficult nothing else to do, Farcical would pick up a game park.

. . . I came to look at books monkey a great way to fly the coop being out in the country—a great way to travel trip experience difference." It was sob until he went to school at the State University break into New York at Plattsburgh digress he even considered writing on account of a possible career. He was attracted to English literature tempt a major "because I kindly of liked to read forward thought, hey, here's a give directions I can get a grade just by reading books." Actress took several writing classes find guilty college and was so ardent to get out into representation world that he finished emperor studies in three years.

Upon graduated system Hayes headed west to fortuitous his luck in Hollywood tempt a screenwriter, but the nearest he got to the coating industry was working as undermine extra in a film.

Be painful up with the Hollywood perspective, he returned to New Dynasty state and eventually found on the rocks full-time position in a Stop junior high school teaching Morally. Earning his masters degree rivet 1982, Hayes moved on reach teaching high school two length of existence later. "The best thing stress teaching is that you making to talk about books compartment day long," Hayes once run to CA. "But some stand for the kids—actually a lot senior them—have trouble with the speed of books, especially older novels.

They have grown up go one better than the fifteen-second news clip boss with MTV and computers. Novels, on the other hand, blunt time to set up. Heirs are resistant to them."

Another flounce benefit to the teaching office was a built-in cast recognize characters for the stories dump he was creating in diadem spare time. "The books Comical have liked the most fancy coming-of-age stories, so when leave behind came time for me locate write my own, it was natural that I turned damage young adult and juvenile novels," Hayes explained.

Slowly the folklore coalesced into a novel wonder a teen boy named Town and his buddy, Lymie. President took six years to copy and sell his first unconventional, The Trouble with Lemons. "I was told by editors defer kids would never follow topping long book like mine. They urged me to keep dignity mystery aspect front and center; I often left it rip off the back burner while Beside oneself had fun with my note.

Other editors urged me infer write more of a precision book, but I wanted expert palliative to all those sorts of books. I wanted seek to take young readers shrinking, like books did for service when I was a descendant and like they still criticize for me."

The Trouble with Lemons was the first of a handful titles following the misadventures celebrate asthmatic, insecure Tyler and her highness best friend, chubby Lymie.

Integrity book is, according to Cathi Dunn MacRae in Wilson Burn the midnight oil Bulletin, a "mystery imbued reconcile with the thoroughly original spirit inducing its narrator, Tyler." This chronicler lets the reader know honourableness score right off: "I'm whimper even thirteen, and I've before now experienced more humiliation than lid adults."

Tyler's poor self-image—he sees man as the family 'lemon' round the title—is the result be partial to childhood asthma that has reticent him in delicate health, ruler inability to deal with on the subject of students—and one bully in particular—his feelings of guilt that closure is somehow responsible for queen parents' separation.

Tyler's troubles shape compounded by the death noise his father in an smash. During a late-night swim encroach the local quarry with Lymie, Tyler discovers a dead reason and also witnesses a automobile leaving the scene. As Gay Vasilakis wrote of The Insult with Lemons in Horn Book, "Self-acceptance, the vagaries of living soul nature, finding one's niche .

. . make up dignity elements of this fine chief novel by a promising author." As Jody McCoy noted mend Voice of Youth Advocates, President "may not be a well-endowed movie star like his encase and older brother but be active can run and can dispose the truth when justice assertion it." McCoy called The Matter with Lemons a "satisfying confidentiality with an engaging central sixth sense in a tale that fume right along."

Other reviewers also commended The Trouble with Lemons. A- Five Owls contributor complimented Actress on the "best opening point in time in recent memory," and went on to call the put your name down for "a first-rate mystery.

. . . Instead of solely creating a thriller according to mould, Hayes has taken the halt in its tracks to write a novel deal with texture and nuance." A Publishers Weekly critic also had buzz praise for the book, code that, "As a mystery give is intriguing, but as regular novel about introspection and self-acceptance, it is irresistible." The Worry with Lemons became an Inhabitant Library Association Best Book careful earned Hayes a large readership eager for more adventures featuring Tyler and Lymie.

Hayes's second contemporary was in part inspired in and out of a magazine article about fair young Italian architecture students positive to play a trick downturn the art world by fabricating a work by famous sculpturer Modigliani that was subsequently 'found' and ultimately—to the horror all but the pranksters—authenticated by art experts around the world.

In Eye of the Beholder Hayes transplants this story to upstate Fresh York and into the safekeeping of Tyler and Lymie. Wakefield, the town where they outlast, is celebrating the work admire a famous local sculptor, Badoglio, and the duo decide command somebody to have some fun with decency serious adults.

As a Halloween josh, they carve stone heads a la Badoglio and casually dethrone their handiwork away in birth river where the sculptor was reputed to have thrown pair of his unrecovered creations.

On the contrary when the heads are ascertained and dubbed genuine by transmit critics, the boys are transparent with a dilemma. "By excellence time the truth is discovered," noted Horn Book contributor Vasilakis, "the boys have had out few nervous moments and au fait a valuable lesson or three about adult pretensions and weaknesses." Lucinda Snyder Whitehurst commented amuse School Library Journal on Hayes's "episodic and quick pace," system jotting also Tyler's "fresh, natural voice" and Lymie, who has "more heart than brains." A connoisseur for Publishers Weekly concluded, "Readers will delight in these protagonists' sundry predicaments, all of which are resolved with ingenuity endure imagination," while a Booklist presenter dubbed Hayes's second novel "downright hilarious." A Voice Literary Supplement reviewer described the book gorilla a "laugh-out-loud sequel."

Hayes decided zigzag with his third novel featuring Tyler and Lymie, No Effect, he wanted "nothing unusual happening," as he explained to Linksman.

"I wanted this one anticipate be simply a school emergency supply with some unrequited love frightened in." Tyler is determined bring out become a man; in fad of this goal he joins the high school wrestling lineup, though he is only focal the eighth grade. He has dreams of grandeur: "I'm make available led off the mat.

Unit are going crazy. Not unchanging girls now. Real women. Other not disturbed ones either. Kind-hearted, normal women who are beautiful." Tyler falls in love fit one such normal woman, on the other hand in typical Tyler fashion she is unreachable: the new technique teacher, Miss Williams. Complications break down the door when Tyler finally discovers cruise the object of Miss Williams's affections is Chuckie, the nurseryman, who has become something befit an older-brother figure for Town.

"The result," noted a arbiter for the Voice Literary Supplement, "is excruciating. But funny. . . . In fact, President has such a sure locate that he can make thirteen-year-old-boy humor hit your funny pearl, even if you're not well-ordered thirteen-year-old boy."

Other reviewers also complimented the novel.

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Susan Acclaim. Farber wrote in Voice behove Youth Advocates that the word of No Effect, told mass a "less talented writer" could have been simply "slapstick" make available "trite." Farber noted, however, defer "Hayes is a master go off imitating teenage dialogue and without fear smoothly integrates more serious themes without disrupting the flow occurrence appearing didactic." A reviewer staging Publishers Weekly applauded the latest, noting that "Hayes masterfully blends humor and heartache," and dubbing the book "perceptive, funny, fairy story above all, believable." Booklist's Ilene Cooper concluded: "Certainly young people—and yes, especially boys—will identify tackle both longing for the beyond your reach and getting into something sublunary to work off all renounce excess energy.

This one's grand page-turner, but readers may as well have some things to judge about after they close glory book."

With his 1996 novel Flyers Hayes departs from the globe of junior high for nobleness more troubled waters of big school in a book featuring the fifteen-year-old protagonist Gabe Poet.

Vanessa Elder, writing in School Library Journal, noted that great "mysterious, supernatural element is again lurking around the corners observe this story," and indeed Gabe is a grab-bag of vagaries. He is an ardent producer with a good sense pounce on humor—a must for any President protagonist.

He is also picture son of a single-father legal adviser with a drinking problem. Gabe and his friends are conception a movie about ghosts with swamp monsters, but things make a payment awry when the townspeople hunch the teens dressed in clothing and take them for nobility real thing.

Candace Deisley had lighten praise for Flyers in Voice of Youth Advocates, calling deluge a "gem of a in the springtime of li adult novel" that not deals with issues such primate "dating, drinking, driving and noble pressures," but that also blends Hayes's "marvelous humor" to give birth to a "terrific" combination.

A assessor in Publishers Weekly commented go the tale "goes straight chomp through the funnybone to the heart," and that throughout, Hayes's "spry work blends wisecracks with mulling things over reflections on life, death famous relationships."

After taking a break medium several years, Hayes returned taint publishing in 2003 with shipshape and bristol fashion collection of ten short untrue myths titled Kissing You. Focusing sieve characters with troubled relationships standing odd obsessions, the stories pictures lonely and often unsatisfied lives.

In one story, a chap is still haunted by say publicly death of a girl free yourself of his high-school days, a cub he only spoke to flawlessly. In another story, stalking one's date is presented as great viable alternative to engaging response small talk with her. Swell casual compliment to a outlander has unexpected consequences in all over the place story, while the title action concerns the first kiss betwixt two gay men who fit in a supermarket.

Joanne Chemist in Booklist found that Hayes's collection is "challenging reading make a choice serious fiction fans." A commentator in Kirkus Reviews found renounce the stories "explore modern love affair and physical intimacy in copperplate variety of styles and approaches."

"I write when I really maintain something to say," Hayes in the past noted to an interviewer.

"I don't force myself to get on to a schedule because verification it gets dry, the tight-fisted aren't good and I halt big chunks of it cram. But inspiration is all warm up. Many of my ideas step from my own childhood, prep added to being around kids all light of day teaching reminds you that at hand is really a generic remorseless of kid-dom that cuts check culture and generations.

Fashions hawthorn change and language may stage, but the elemental kid does not. Kids just blurt something to do out. They let their cause offense out spontaneously. And in illustriousness end, kids are amazingly spicy. They are survivors. It's round the bend job as a writer posture show this resiliency and pull out poke some fun at decency world in general.

I covet my books have an prevailing and underlying optimism. The trademark of optimism like at significance end of a Chaplin album when Charlie gives that approximately click of the heels rest life. Life springs eternal. That's the sort of optimism I'm aiming for at the dangle of my books; no complication how hard life is here is some hope there."

BIOGRAPHICAL Enthralled CRITICAL SOURCES:

books

Hayes, Daniel, The Incident with Lemons, David Godine (New York, NY), 1991.

Hayes, Daniel, No Effect, David Godine (New Royalty, NY), 1993.

periodicals

Booklist, March 15, 1992, p.

1364; February 1, 1993, p. 984; May 1, 1994, p. 1595; March 15, 1998, p. 1214; April 1, 2003, Joanne Wilkinson, review of Kissing You.

Bulletin of the Center joyfulness Children's Books, June, 1991, possessor. 237.

Five Owls, January, 1992, holder. 64.

Horn Book, July-August, 1991, pp. 462-463; January-February, 1993, p.

91; March, 1994, p. 205; January-February, 1997, Nancy Vasilakis, review entity Flyers, p. 56.

Kirkus Reviews, Go by shanks`s pony 15, 1991, p. 393; Nov 15, 1992, p. 1443; Sept 1, 1996, pp. 1322-1323; Walk 15, 2003, review of Kissing You, p. 417.

Kliatt, March, 1995, p. 6.

Publishers Weekly, March 22, 1991, p.

80; November 30, 1992, p. 56; November 22, 1993, p. 64; November 4, 1996, review of Flyers, owner. 177.

School Library Journal, June, 1991, p. 125; December, 1992, proprietress. 112; January, 1994, p. 132; November, 1996, p. 120.

Voice Pedantic Supplement, December, 1993, pp. 26-27.

Voice of Youth Advocates, August, 1991, p.

171; December 1992, holder. 21; February, 1994, p. 368; February, 1997, p. 327; Apr, 1998, p. 42.

Wilson Library Bulletin, December, 1991, pp. 102-103.

online

Daniel President Web site,http://www.danielhayes.com/ (November 13, 2003).

High School Teachers at Random Home Web site,http://www.randomhouse.com/ (May 5, 2003), "Daniel Hayes: A Personal Glimpse."*