About Adrian Fogelin.

My mother, baby brother and me. Oh, boy, a baby all for me!

I’ve heard it said that all writers who are worth their salt had unhappy childhoods.

If that’s true I’m cooked.  Mine was happy.  Very.

My father was a hard working chemical engineer, my mother a prolific fiction writer and storyteller.

My Italian grandfather (Nonno to me) lived with us.  To offset my mother’s cheerful stories he provided the ballast of gloom.  All his tales ended with some variation on, “and then…they all died.”

But he did little to dampen my childhood—my brother, sister and I quickly decided whose stories to believe.

The Fogelin family lived comfortably but carefully, in the shadow of the Great Depression—all three adults in our household had vivid memories of getting by on nothing.  As a result my mother was a ketchup bottle washer—until the bottle was rinsed and the pale pink liquid added to soup the bottle was not really empty.

I am a second generation ketchup bottle washer—and a second generation fiction writer although it took me a while to realize I was destined to become my mother.

Before accepting the inevitable, I worked as an illustrator for the Baltimore Zoo, retouched zits on photos for high school yearbooks.  While living aboard a boat in the Florida Keys I did a little of everything from cleaning condos, to running my own art gallery, and managing a public library—all of which have given me great “material.”

This photo catches perfectly how ecstatic I feel when I'm singing.

Like my mother I’m an enthusiastic fan of life.  Luckily, I inherited her sympathetic face so people tell me their stories.  I write them down, with a healthy dose of what-if and never-was thrown in.

Despite my many years as a grownup, and despite having lots of grownup things (one husband, one daughter, a house of my own) I still feel like an imposter, a kid in disguise.  Adults often baffle me, but kids I get, and that is the audience I normally write for.

I have eight middle-grade and YA novels published by Peachtree Publishers of Atlanta, and five more soon-to-be-published, or languishing-in-a-drawer novels to boot.  Thirteen novels in all—even I’m impressed.

To write thirteen novels takes time, so maybe I am an adult.  Whether I am or not, I find I have things to say to my fellow-former-kids.   That’s why I put up this blog.  I wanted to start a conversation about this journey we’re all on.

If you would like to learn about my work as a children’s book author visit my website at www.adrianfogelin.com

And if you would like to hear me sing, check out the website for my band,  Hot Tamale.

If you are a writer in search of help check out my Book Coach Services posted on my author websie.