William Sleator (1945-2011)

Publishers Weekly reports via Twitter that author William Sleator, 66, died August 2, 2011 in Thailand.

Sleator is best known for his children’s and young adult novels, including House of Stairs (1974), Interstellar Pig (1984) and sequel Parasite Pig (2002), The Duplicate (1988), Rewind (1999), and Test (2008). He also wrote picture books, composed music, and sometimes wrote non-fiction.

William Warner Sleator III was born February 13, 1945 in Havre de Grace MD. He grew up in St. Louis MO and attended Harvard University, graduating with an English degree in 1967. He studied music in London in the late ’60s, and played piano for several ballet companies through the late ’70s. His first published book was children’s story and Caldecott Honor Book The Angry Moon (1970).

In recent years he divided his time between Boston MA and a small village in Thailand.

For more, see Sleator’s Encyclopedia of Science Fiction entry.