Eric Walters

 

by Hailey, age 11
Holy Spirit Catholic School 
Main Street, Stittsville, Ottawa

Biography: childhood, family, education

Eric Walter was born in 1957, in Toronto, Ont., and grew up very involved in sports. Now that he is an adult, he is still very involved in the community. If he is not writing, you will usually see Eric coaching his children's soccer and basketball teams. He spends a lot of time with his wife, children and dogs. Another hobby of Eric's is music, he loves everything from rock, reggae, jazz, and contemporary. He and his youngest daughter, Julia also share the love of playing the alto saxophone. From early on, Eric had always wanted to be a psychologist, and he received his degree for psychology in 1957 from the New York University. later on, he realised that another true dream of his was to become a teacher. He knew that these days it was tough to do so, but soon enough he got his Bachelor of education from the university of Toronto. He started to teach all grades from kindergarten to grade six.

Why he became a writer:

In 1993, Eric Walters was teaching a grade five class, and he had no idea that he would ever be an author. His students disliked reading, and to encourage them, he started to write some books of his own. After his first book, which involved many of the students in his class, he became more and more interested in children's literature. He started writing and soon became a very dedicated author. Since his first novel, his books have been loved by kids all over the world. his novels are now available even in New Zealand and Australia, and have been translated into three languages. As Eric said, "The most important thing anybody ever told me about writing was to write about what you know... and the only way to know things is to do your homework and research before you write.

Types of books: Eric Walters writes mostly fiction adventure stories, and a fair amount of them are placed up north, in the snow and ice, and he has also written a series about kids who save tigers. Eric always tries to write about what he knows, and as Eric said " The most important thing anybody ever told me about writing was to write about what you know... and the only way to know things is to do your homework and research before you write."

Achievements/Awards:

Eric has won a lot of awards for his many books, he is the only three-time winner of the Ontario Library Association Silver Birch Award. After an award like this is won, it is known that the winner is an amazing author, because close to one hundred thousand participate in voting.

Another one of his amazing books, War of the Eagles was nominated for 4 awards that he did not win, but it won 8 different awards!

 Sources:

http://www.interlog.com/~ewalters/
Meet Canadian Authors and Illustrators, by Allison Getridge (Scholastic Books)