A singer by the name of Tony Soll wrote a song about my book What Happened in Hamelin. You can listen to it by clicking
HERE!
Movies
I wrote a novel about the Pied Piper, set in the fourteenth century. It speculates what might have really happened when he stole the children. If all goes as hoped, in the next year or so What Happened in Hamelin will be made into a movie produced by Jane Startz, who also produced the films Ella Enchanted and Tuck Everlasting. The possibility of having a book made into a film brings stars to the eyes of any writer.
Books
Right now I’m working on a book about new types of rockets that will send spacecraft soaring into space in the year 2015, or 2020, or 2030 (my husband is a rocket scientist, which is a big help!).
I love the future! My four-book series The Virtual War Chronologs begins in the year 2080, when Earth has been almost destroyed. One reviewer wrote, "Skurzynski revisits the near-future dystopia of her Virtual War in a Crichtonesque thriller with creepy Oedipal overtones. Nobody can top Skurzynski at creating an atmosphere of sinister paranoia." (“Chrichtonesque” compares me to Michael Crichton. I love it!)
Sometimes when I write about the past, I go very far into the past, as in Spider’s Voice. It’s a historical romance about the world-famous lovers, Abelard and Eloise. The novel takes place in France during the twelfth century.
This is a list of all the books I have written to date:
THE VIRTUAL WAR CHRONOLOGS, BOOK FOUR, THE CHOICE
Atheneum, 2006
THE VIRTUAL WAR CHRONOLOGS, BOOK THREE, THE REVOLT
Atheneum, 2005
ARE WE ALONE? SCIENTISTS SEARCH FOR LIFE IN SPACE
National Geographic, 2004
THE VIRTUAL WAR CHRONOLOGS, BOOK ONE, VIRTUAL WAR
Simon & Schuster paperback, 2004
THE VIRTUAL WAR CHRONOLOGS, BOOK TWO, THE CLONES
Simon & Schuster paperback, 2004
WAVES, THE ELECTROMAGNETIC UNIVERSE
National Geographic, 1996
CAITLIN'S BIG IDEA
Troll Books, 1995
CYBERSTORM
Macmillan Books for Young Readers, 1995
ZERO GRAVITY
Bradbury Press, 1994
KNOW THE SCORE
Bradbury Press, 1994
GET THE MESSAGE
Bradbury Press, 1993
GOOD-BYE, BILLY RADISH
Bradbury Press, 1992
paperback, Aladdin, 1996
HERE COMES THE MAIL
Bradbury Press, 1992
ALMOST THE REAL THING
Bradbury Press, 1991
ROBOTS
Bradbury Press, 1990
DANGEROUS GROUND
Bradbury Press, 1989
THE MINSTREL IN THE TOWER
Random House, 1988
SWEPT IN THE WAVE OF TERROR
Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1985
CAUGHT IN THE MOVING MOUNTAINS
Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1984
paperback, Beech Tree Books, 1994
TRAPPED IN THE SLICKROCK CANYON
Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1984
paperback, Beech Tree Books, 1994
THE TEMPERING
Clarion Books, 1983
LOST IN THE DEVIL'S DESERT
Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1982
paperback, Beech Tree Books, 1993
MANWOLF
Clarion Books, 1981
THREE FOLKTALES
Houghton Mifflin Reading Program, 1981
SAFEGUARDING THE LAND
Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1981
HONEST ANDREW
Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1981
WHAT HAPPENED IN HAMELIN
Four Winds Press, 1979
paperback, Random House, 1993
MARTIN BY HIMSELF
Houghton Mifflin, 1979
BIONIC PARTS FOR PEOPLE
Four Winds Press, 1978
TWO FOOLS AND A FAKER
Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1977
IN A BOTTLE WITH A CORK ON TOP
Dodd, Mead, 1976
THE POLTERGEIST OF JASON MOREY
Dodd, Mead, 1975
THE REMARKABLE JOURNEY OF GUSTAVUS BELL
Abingdon, 1973
THE MAGIC PUMPKIN
Four Winds Press, 1971
With Alane Ferguson:
NIGHT OF THE BLACK BEAR
National Geographic 2007
BURIED ALIVE
National Geographic, 2003
paperback, 2003
ESCAPE FROM FEAR
National Geographic, 2002
paperback, 2002
OUT OF THE DEEP
National Geographic, 2002
paperback, 2002
RUNNING SCARED
National Geographic, 2002
paperback. 2002
OVER THE EDGE
National Geographic, 2001
paperback, 2001
VALLEY OF DEATH
National Geographic, 2001
paperback, 2001
GHOST HORSES
National Geographic, 2000
paperback, 2001
THE HUNTED
National Geographic, 2000
paperback, 2001
DEADLY WATERS
National Geographic, 1999
paperback, 2001
CLIFF-HANGER
National Geographic, 1999
paperback, 2001
RAGE OF FIRE
National Geographic, 1998
paperback, 2001
WOLF STALKER
National Geographic, 1997
paperback, 2001
THE MYSTERY OF THE FIRE IN THE SKY
Troll Books, 1997
THE MYSTERY OF THE HAUNTED SILVER MINE
Troll Books, 1997
THE MYSTERY OF THE VANISHING CREATURES
Troll Books, 1996
THE MYSTERY OF THE SPOOKY SHADOW
Troll Books, 1996
Heroes
My husband, Ed Skurzynski, whose extensive career in rocketry began during the cold war between the U.S. and Russia. F. Scott Fitzgerald. Everyone in my family, past, present and future.
…tells the story of the American labor movement
from the first strike in 1619 to today’s loss of jobs
and outsourcing worries. From the carpenter’s union
in colonial Philadelphia to the strike in 2007 by Chinese
restaurant delivery men in New York City, the history of
how brave working people struggled to gain fair wages,
reasonable hours, and secure lives by forming labor unions is a powerful American story filled with drama
and intrigue. Order on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
Please take the time to watch this Youtube video of my daughter Jan Skurzynski and her friends Joel Kaserman, Pat Folkner, and Peggy Jordan, who got together for a fun jam. They sang labor songs to celebrate the publication of Gloria Skurzynski's new book, SWEAT AND BLOOD: A HISTORY OF U.S. LABOR UNIONS. The publication date is - Labor Day! Jan and her friends are fine musicians and they sing from the heart. Since so many people are losing jobs these days, these songs will resonate with you. HAPPY LABOR DAY!
My parents were born just before the start of the twentieth century; my youngest grandchild arrived at the end of the twentieth century. The years of my life have been the most dynamic in the history of the human race. Technical knowledge has exploded; so has the Earth's human population. We can create almost anything, yet each day we lose parts of our planet that can never be replaced.
I'm greedy: I want to write about all of it - the history, the grief, joy, and excitement of being human in times past; the cutting-edge inventions of times now here.
When I work on a book like GOOD-BYE, BILLY RADISH, I find my way back home to the smoky, sooty, western Pennsylvania town where flames from smokestacks set fire to the night. Today the smoke is gone, and so are the steel mills, but in my own memory, and through the stories my parents told me, I can recreate that time and place. It's important that I do that, because if I don't, no one will remember the rumbles and shrieks of the mills, the smell of the smoke, the blaze of the furnaces, and the enormous power of the steel mills over the townspeople.
Novels about times past are easy to research, because we know what happened then. The future is a mystery.
We can only imagine what it will be like: virtual worlds where people can touch things that aren't real, and move around in them, and move them around to wherever they please; technical wizardry that may make life perfect, or - if we're unlucky - could create disasters worldwide; genetic engineering that might raise humans and animals and viruses into superior beings, or perhaps, flaw them tragically.
In THE VIRTUAL WAR CHRONOLOGS, I’ve tried to imagine all these possibilities. The CHRONOLOGS begin in the year 2080. I won't be around then to discover whether any of my predictions have come true, but many of my readers will live in that wonderful (we hope) and exciting time - Earth's future.
Caught up in the wonderment of the world to come, and infused with equal wonderment over the world long past, I think how lucky I am to be a writer, to be the channel through which this knowledge flows. As much as I admire the work of scientists and engineers and historians and archaeologists, I think my job is the best. I get to have it all.
I only wish I could live forever, so I could see how the future turns out.
I do NOT feel the way Sergei Rachmaninoff did when he wrote that. I have a lot to say, and a lot to write about concerning these times, the here and now. But I also write about the times before I was born. My books The Tempering and Good-bye, Billy Radish are set in a steel town just like Duquesne, Pennsylvania, where I grew up. My father worked in the steel mill. So did every other man in our family. It was dirty, dangerous work.
Coal mining is even dirtier work and even more dangerous. In my novel Rockbuster I wrote about coal mining in Utah. In Rockbuster, the hero named Tommy works in a coal mine, and he lost his father in a mine cave-in. My book was almost prophetic of the Utah mine disaster and others that happened before that, and will, unhappily, happen again.
For a very different kind of book, my daughter Alane Ferguson and I co-author the National Parks Mystery series. We've written 13 mysteries, each one set in a different national park, each about dangerous or threatened species of animals. We've visited every park we wrote about, which was great fun because Alane is a smart and beautiful writer who likes to make people laugh.
Who I'd like to meet: Present and future fans of my books.
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I’m giving away 2 books to one winner--a historical romance and a time travel romance either in ebook pdf format or trade paperback. The historical is a 2009 Eppie Winner.
