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Elmore Leonard |
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Elmore Leonard was born in 1925 in New Orleans. He lived in Dallas, Oklahoma City and Memphis before his family settled in Detroit in 1935. He served in the US Navy during the Second World War and afterwards studied English literature at the University of Detroit, graduating in 1950. From 1949 to 1961 he worked as a copywriter in various advertising agencies and, apart from a few book reviews, he has been writing only novels and screenplays since 1967. LaBrava won the 1983 Edgar Allan Poe Award for the best mystery novel and in 1992 Elmore Leonard was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. His books include Glitz, The Switch, The Hunted, Unknown Man No. 89, Cat Chaser, Split Images, City Primeval, Bandits, Gold Coast, Touch, Freaky Deaky, Killshot, Get Shorty, Maximum Bob, Rum Punch, Pronto, Riding the Rap, Cuba Libre and Out of Sight. Three Novels, an omnibus edition, has also been published, comprising Stick, Swag and Mr Majestyk. Elmore Leonard is a connoisseur of the crime thriller and many of his novels have been filmed, the most recent being Rum Punch as the movie Jackie Brown. Most of his books are published by Penguin.
Elmore Leonard is a member of the Authors' Guild, the Writers' Guild of America, Western Writers of America and Mystery Writers of America.
Already a highly acclaimed adult writer, a connoisseur of the crime thriller with over twenty novels published, many of which have been made into films, such as Jackie Brown and Get Shorty, A Coyote's in the House is Elmore Leonard's first book for children. Hip and off-the-wall it reads like a PG-rated Tarantino movie with crackling dialogue and a cast of quirky characters. Find out more about Elmore Leonard here.
In A Coyote’s in the House one of the characters is the dog of a character from Get Shorty. Did you plan this from the start?
There is a dog named Buddy in Get Shorty? If there is, it wasn’t planned.
After writing so many adult books did you find it difficult to adapt your style to write for teenagers?
Once I realised the book should be written from the coyote’s point of view it wasn’t difficult. Antwan, in human form, is a character in many of my books.
Can we expect any more adventures from Antwan and Buddy?
I’d be happy to write another coyote book.
Would you like to see A Coyote’s in the House turned into a film like so many of your other books?
Our plan is to see Antwan in animation; a script is being written by an experienced animation writer.
Who are your favourite authors and why?
Any good writer – Hemingway, Margaret Atwood, Ian Rankin. My favourite crime novel is The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins.
Do you have a routine that you stick to when you write your books?
I write from ten until six during the week, accepting interruptions, phone calls, and a few hours on the weekend when I have a book going. Right now I’m at the mid point of a novel set in Oklahoma in the 1930s.
