Gary Paulsen (1939-2021)
Gary Paulsen, 82, died October 13, 2021 at home in Tularosa NM of cardiac arrest. Paulsen was best known for his YA novels about wilderness survival, notably Hatchet (1986).
In all, he wrote more than 200 titles, with numerous SF works (adult and YA) among them, beginning with The Implosion Effect (1976) and including The Green Recruit (1978), The Night the White Deer Died (1978), Meteorite Track 291 (1979), Compkill (1981), Canyons (1990), Amos and the Vampire (1996), The Transall Saga (1998; as Blue Light, 1999), The White Fox Chronicles (2000), and The Time Hackers (2006).
Gary Melvin Paulsen was born May 17, 1939 in Minneapolis MN, and spent part of his childhood in Manila in the Philippines. He graduated high school in Minnesota, briefly attended Bemidji State University, and served in the Army from 1959-62. He spent some time in Los Angeles, writing for TV, including Mission: Impossible. He later lived in Alaska, on a ranch in New Mexico, and frequently spent time sailing the Pacific. He received the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association for lifetime achievement in young adult literature in 1997. He is survived by his wife, illustrator and author Ruth Wright Paulsen, their son, and two grandchildren.
For more, see his entry in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.
