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Featured Writer| David Brin
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David Brin Interview by Kiakiali
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Would it surprise you to learn that nearly ten percent of all best selling authors have a connection to San Diego? It should, since we made that number up. However, it may not be far from the truth.
As a San Diego-based writer isn't it nice to know you share a hometown with some of the most popular and prolific authors? You may not have as many titles to your credit as Chet Cunningham (over 300), or sold as many books as Ken Blanchard (the One Minute Manager) and Spencer Johnson (Who Moved My Cheese?), or influenced as many people as Theodor Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss), but you have something in common with each and every one of these literary legends—they called San Diego home as do you.
The following short list of San Diego's most famous authors, past and present, celebrates the success of San Diego's writing community and should inspire current wordsmiths to reach higher in pursuit of joining the ranks. This article doesn't feature every best selling author with ties to San Diego, but instead pulls various examples from different decades and genres.
Greg Bear , born in San Diego in 1951, is one of only two authors to win a Nebula Award® in each of the 5 categories, as well as two Hugo Awards. The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Science Fiction called Bear the “best working writer of hard science fiction.”
Ken Blanchard first self-published The One Minute Manager®, with Spencer Johnson, before the book became one of the most successful management titles of all time. Dr. Blanchard, Gung Ho® and Raving Fans®, came to San Diego on a teaching sabbatical in the mid-seventies. Together with his wife, Marjorie, Dr. Blanchard operates The Ken Blanchard Companies in Escondido.
David Brin wrote Sundiver and Star Tide Rising (a Hugo , Nebula, and Locus Award winner) while studying and teaching at UCSD and SDSU. Warner Brothers' Studios produced a major motion picture with Kevin Costner based on Brin's The Postman. Brin was most recently involved in the History Channel's 2008 Life After People feature.
Raymond Chandler has been considered the finest writer of detective fiction of all time. His wise-cracking private-eye Philip Marlowe is legendary. In December of 1939, he and his wife, Cissy, "wintered" in Bird Rock (La Jolla). They returned in 1946 and he continued to return time and again to the area until his death at Scripps La Jolla in 1959.
Cameron Crowe graduated from University High School, at the age of 15, and joined the staff of Rolling Stone. Almost Famous, winner of two Golden Globes and an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, is Crowe's tale of his time with Rolling Stone. Crowe "attended" Clairemont High School undercover to research the book that would later become Fast Times at Ridegmont High, a cult classic film.
Chet Cunningham, prolific and terrific, with 300 fiction and 15 non-fiction titles, founded the non-profit San Diego Book Awards Association, to recognize local writers. Cunningham once wrote a novel in 5 days to fill an editor's open spot in a Western series.
Raymond Feist signed a multi-million dollar six-book deal with Harper Collins last May. Not bad for a guy who was considering a career with Burger King as a management trainee before he got his big break. After graduating from UCSD, Feist worked as a social worker before cutbacks cost him his job. Friends loaned him money and he moved back in with his mother, in a Clairemont apartment, to finish his first book, Magician.
Theodor Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss) and 1st wife, Helen, purchased an old observation tower in La Jolla in 1948. “The Tower” was their primary residence. Geisel won numerous awards including a Pulitzer, Oscar, Emmys, a Peabody, 3 Caldecott Medals and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award. With 44 books to his credit and sales of over 200 million copies, Geisel is our best selling, best known and best-loved San Diego author.
Louise Hay, a cancer survivor, is widely regarded as one of the founders of the self-help movement. Heal Your Body & You Can Heal Your Life are among her best sellers, with over 30 millions copies sold of both. Hay owns and operates Hay House, a Carlsbad based publishing company, and Hay House Radio.
Spencer Johnson once had an office overlooking La Jolla cove. His first book, Who Moved My Cheese, was Amazon.com 's #1 all-time best-selling book during it's first ten years in business. Johnson co-wrote The One Minute Manager® with Ken Blanchard.
Jewel Kilcher is best known as the homeless troubadour who played at The Inner Change Cafe in Pacific Beach. Kilcher, a resident of Rancho Santa Fe, is also is a rarity in the publishing world with a New York Times Bestseller book of poetry, A Night Without Armor, which sold over 1 million copies.
Ken Kuhlken’s novels include Midheaven, chosen as finalist for the Ernest Hemingway Award for best first novel and The Loud Adios , winner of the Private Eye Writers of America/St. Martin’s Press Best First Mystery Novel Award. Kuhlken earned a degree in literature from San Diego State and is a frequent contributor and a columnist for the San Diego Reader.
Richard Lederer, Cardiff resident, has over 30 books to his credit about language, humor, history and historical trivia. Until recently Lederer hosted the popular radio show A Way With Words.
Art Linkletter began his career as a broadcaster at KGB while still a senior at San Diego State University. Linkletter originated the "Man on the Street" style of reporting. House Party and People Are Funny, two shows Linkletter hosted hold the top spots for longest running shows in broadcast television history. Kids Say The Darndest Things has been running off and on for forty-five years. Linkletter has written over two dozen books, among them are three autobiographies. Kids Say the Darndest Things and Old Age Is Not for Sissies are his best sellers.
Anita Loos graduated from Russ High School (now San Diego High School). In 1925 she wrote Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and followed it up in 1928 But Gentleman Marry Brunettes. She was briefly married to the band conductor at the Hotel Del Coronado.
Jeff Mariotte once was an editor for DC Comics and now co-owns Mysterious Galaxy bookstore in La Mesa. He is the author of numerous Sci-Fi books, many are tie-ins to popular TV series such as Angel, Buffy and Star Trek.
Max Miller was a newspaperman who covered the San Diego waterfront for the San Diego Sun. Author of 25 books, Miller was known for best selling I Cover The Waterfront which was made into a movie. He and his wife lived in La Jolla. Miller was a principal promoter of the La Jolla Rough Water Swim, which he competed in for 30 years, always being the last to finish (by design).
T. Jefferson Parker began his writing career in Orange County, but is now a San Diego resident. While working as a journalist in OC, he spent all his spare time writing Laguna Heat, a New York Times Bestseller which was made into a movie. Other titles by Parker have won the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Best Mystery/Thriller and Novel of the Year by the Southern California Booksellers Association.
Tony Robbins has his offices in La Jolla. Robbins is best known as an authority on the psychology of leadership, negotiations, organizational turnaround, and peak performance. His books Unlimited Power and Awaken the Giant Within ushered in the life coaching industry.
Alan Russell is a local author whose books are a mystery - will they be classic whodunits, psychological thrillers, suspense or comedic mysteries? His current novel, Multiple Wounds , is both an Anthony Award and Macavity nominee.
Brian Tracy has written over 45 books, written and produced over 300 audio and video learning programs, including the best-selling Psychology of Achievement. Tracy is President of three companies headquartered in Solana Beach.
Robert Wade met his writing partner Bill Miller while they attended Woodrow Wilson Junior High School here in San Diego. The two went on to Hoover High School and San Diego State University, where they wrote for the campus paper. Their professional career was under the joint pen name of Wade Miller . The two friends wrote over 30 novels and many TV and film screenplays. Robert Wade continued writing and has over a dozen novels in his own name (or one of various other pseudonyms - Will Daemer, Dale Wilmer, or Whit Masterson) with 15 million copies sold.
Joseph Wambaugh, Point Loma's resident best-selling author, was the son of a police officer and a Detective Sergeant with the LAPD, himself, before writing his first book, The New Centurions, while still on the job. Many of his early works were made into movies (The Onion Field and The Choirboys among them) and he created the television series, Police Story . In 2004, the Mystery Writers of America named him a Grand Master.