Chris Crutcher
Chris Crutcher
Chris Crutcheris an American novelist and a family therapist. He received the Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association in 2000 for his lifetime contribution in writing for teens...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth17 July 1946
CountryUnited States of America
awareness backwards counting death fear realized start stopped terms time turned
When I turned 50, I realized I was now going to start counting backwards in terms of the years I had left. Then I turned 60, and I just stopped counting. I don't have a fear of death, but I have an awareness that there's a time limit.
zero children school
Censors can make a case for zero tolerance in language. They can make the argument that since we don't allow our children to use that language in schools, we also shouldn't give them stories in which it is used.
running book firsts
My first book, 'Running Loose', was censored back in 1983 or '84. Every book I've written since has been censored somewhere.
book use be-careful
You have to be careful not to use anything too colloquial or you date the book.
school mean eye
Being an outsider means not being heard, not having a voice. It means being treated as a second-class citizen, being diminished in the eyes of others. We have all felt this way at one time or another, but some feel it more consistently. Unfortunately, our schools often do not embrace the talents of many of their occupants.
thinking years voice
Certainly working with teens keeps me up to date with language and with certain kinds of thinking. I often feel like I have to go back to that 17-year-old Chris Crutcher, and that forms the core voice. I can draw on teens from 1964 to 2001 to find a part of the voice I need.
senior school men
Deadline' is the story of a young man forced to discover who he is, and what's important in life, during the short span of his senior year in high school.
teens way honest
I am for anything that makes teens visible in an honest way... in other words, anything that represents them the way they are, positively or negatively.
real thinking knowing
I don't think I'll ever lose the feeling that I had when I read 'To Kill a Mockingbird' - Harper Lee was going back into her childhood. I grew up in a real small town - Lee's was in the South, mine the Northwest - but small towns have a lot in common. There was such a revelation in knowing that a story could be told like that.
real teenager school
I have made a career of creating characters who fight school authority and chomp at the bit to get out into the 'real' world and live their lives, mostly because that's the kind of teenager I was.
book reading stories
Sometimes a book is better than it ever had a right to be because of the history the reader brings to the reading and because of the methods educators use to bring a particular story alive.
believe character stories
The premise of 'Deadline' forced me to go against my own grain with a character determined to find all that is valuable in that time. I believe this is a story about redemption; how, even with the best intentions, it's sometimes found and sometimes not.
mad language
You have to be mad in the language you're mad in.
thinking shows ifs
And I think if you're going to be with somebody, you owe it to them to show yourself.