Alan Dean Foster- Author
Created | Updated Jan 5, 2015
Alan Dean Foster was born in New York City, in the United States of America in 1946. He and his sister grew up in Los Angeles, where in 1968/1969, he received a Batchelor's Degree in Political Science and a Master of Fine Arts in Cinema from the University of California at Los Angeles.
Foster then spent two years as a Copywriter for a small Studio City, advertising and Public relations firm, in California. Studio City is one of the many small communities that grew up to make what is known as Greater Los Angeles. It got it's name because it was right next to some of the major film studois. such as Universal, Disney, and Warner Brothers.
His work was first published in 1968, when August Derleth1, bought a Lovecraftain2 letter written by Foster, and used it as a story in The Arkham Collector, a bi-annual magazine published by Derleth. Sales to other short story fiction magazines followed quickly after this, and Foster still enjoys writing short stories today.
Foster's first attempt at a novel, The Tar-Aiym Krang, was bought and published by Ballantine Books in 1972, and was the start of a continuingly successful writing career.
Some of Foster's published works, include, The Spellsinger Series of novels and the Commonwealth books, and he has produced novel versions of numerous movies, such as the first three Aliens Films and Star Wars3.
As stated before in this article, Foster enjoys writing short stories, and has written several screenplays, audio works and non-fiction books. He has recieved several litery awards, including the Galaxy Award in 1979 for Splinter Of The Minds Eye, his second book about the Star Wars Universe.
Foster told me, "If I wasn't writing then I'd like to be a tour guide, or in the import-export business...but I'd probably be a lawyer, or a college instructor. What I'd really like to do (but don't have the time to try) right now is to write classical music...symphonies, cantatas, concertos, etc."
I also asked if there was one thing he wanted to say to his fans and he replied, "It's a small planet...see as much of it as you can, and
appreciate what a tiny, tiny ship we're all adrift on together."
Alan Dean Foster now lives in Prescott, Arizona, in a house built of bricks reclaimed from a 'turn-of-the-century miners' brothel'. He is at the moment working on several new projects. One of which includes a new Star Wars novel to be set between The Phantom Menace and Part II of the Star Wars Series of films. The title could be, 'The Approching Storm', and the author says he is having a lot of fun writing it.
For more information on Alan Dean Foster, a list of all his works and up to the minute news on what the author is doing, then visit his website
ALANDEANFOSTER.COM
1In 1939, August Derleth along with Donald Wandrei established the oldest fantasy publishing house in the world, Arkham House.2H.P. Lovecraft was a gifted writer friend of August Derleth.3Which he ghost wrote for George Lucas.
