Rick Riordan (1964 – )

Most famous for his series Percy Jackson & The Olympians, he currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts with his wife and two children.

However, Rick was not always a writer. After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin where he studied History and English and receiving his teacher’s certification from the University of Texas at San Antonio, he became an English and Social Studies teacher. He taught for 15 years before he began writing full-time. His first novel, Big Red Tequila, was published in 1997, which began his first series, the Tres Navarre series. This series won him the Shamus Award, which is granted to excellent detective fiction novels, the Anthony Award, a prestigious award for mystery writers, and the Edgar Award, which awards brilliant mystery books in honor of Edgar Allan Poe.

His writing career quickly blossomed, and in 2005, he began the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series, which has been adapted into two movies and currently is being adapted into a Disney series. His first novel in the series The Lightning Thief (2005) began as a bedtime story. His inspiration came from the Greek mythology he was teaching to students and his son Haley. Haley had recently been diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, and Riordan made the main character in The Lightning Thief have the same diagnoses in an attempt to show his son the creative and inventive side of ADHD and dyslexia; honoring his and other children’s potential. The Percy Jackson & The Olympians series, with its fast-paced action, humor, clever and heartwarming characters, and complex and detailed worldbuilding, has sold over 180 million copies worldwide and has won him several awards for his skill with children’s literature. These awards include two Mark Twain Awards, a Rebecca Caudill Award, the Wyoming Soaring Eagle Book Award, and the Milner Award.

Rick Riordan’s writing career did not end with the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series. He also published an offshoot series from it called The Heroes of Olympus, a separate series called The Kane Chronicles, the Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard series, the Tres Navarre series, and many other novels. He also contributed to The 39 Clues Series. In total, Rick Riordan has published over 30 novels, which have received many awards and been translated into 42 different languages. In 2011, he won the Children’s Choice Book Award for Author of the Year. The popularity of his novels among children, adolescents, and adults alike speaks to Riordan’s ability to draw readers into his worlds and leave them waiting breathlessly for the hero's next adventures.