This Months Featured Author - Christopher
Paolini
Christopher
Paolini was born on November 17, 1983 in Southern California. He has
lived most of his life in Paradise Valley, Montana with his parents
and younger sister, Angela. The tall, jagged Beartooth Mountains rise
on one side of Paradise Valley. Snowcapped most of the year, they inspired
the fantastic scenery in Eragon.
Christopher was home schooled by his parents. As a child, he often
wrote short stories and poems, made frequent trips to the library, and
read widely. Some of his favorite books were Bruce Coville's Jeremy
Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher, Frank Herbert's Dune, and Raymond E. Feist's
Magician, as well as books by Anne McCaffrey, Jane Yolen, Brian Jacques,
E.R. Eddison, David Eddings, and Ursula K. Le Guin. The idea of Eragon
began as the daydreams of a teen. Christopher's love for the magic of
stories led him to craft a novel that he would enjoy reading. The project
began as a hobby, a personal challenge; he never intended it to be published.
All the characters in Eragon are from Christopher's imagination except
Angela the herbalist, who is loosely based on his sister.
Christopher was fifteen when he wrote the first draft of Eragon. He
took a second year to revise the book and then gave it to his parents
to read. The family decided to self-publish the book and spent a third
year preparing the manuscript for publication: copyediting, proofreading,
designing a cover, typesetting the manuscript, and creating marketing
materials. During this time Christopher drew the map for Eragon, as
well as the dragon eye for the book cover (that now appears inside the
Knopf hardcover edition). The manuscript was sent to press and the first
books arrived in November 2001. The Paolini family spent the next year
promoting the book at libraries, bookstores, and schools in 2002 and
early 2003. In summer 2002, author Carl Hiaasen, whose stepson read
a copy of the self-published book while on vacation in Montana, brought
Eragon to the attention of his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf Books For
Young Readers, an imprint of Random House Children's Books. Michelle
Frey, executive editor at Knopf, contacted Christopher and his family
to ask if they might be interested in having Knopf publish Eragon. The
answer was yes, and after another round of editing, Knopf published
Eragon in August 2003.
Copyright © 2008 Random House.
