Gary Paulsen spent his life dedicated to enlightening audiences about nature, survival, and the human spirit. By conjuring coming-of-age stories inside tales of violence and humanity, Paulsen created a unique window into the human condition that shows readers what it means to experience real life. Few other young-adult authors discussed these themes as successfully. By understanding Paulsen’s life, those of us that have read his work can understand just what lessons he wanted to impart. 

Paulsen’s Early life

Gary Paulsen was born on May 17^th, 1939, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He grew up in a dysfunctional household and ran away at 14 years old. He spent that year on a sugar beet farm and then as a carnival worker. An unexceptional student, he maintained a low average in his classes, which belied his intelligence, as a chance visit to a library turned him into a reading machine.

“I’d gotten somehow to the age 12; my parents were drunks,” Paulsen said in an interview with Teaching Books. “I flunked everything and barely got out of school … A public librarian offered me a library card and encouraged me to read.”

Paulsen would later state in the interview regarding the wilds: “… but my sense of survival is also different because the wilderness is my bedroom, my living room, and my study. It’s my home. I am alien in New York City and in Madison, Wisconsin. The noise of the city is horribly offensive to me because of that time on the streets. I feel much more secure in the woods … Many years later, I felt much safer in the Iditarod than I had as a child. Running across bad ice and living to tell about it felt safer to me than my entire childhood.”

His reading journey took him all over the literary world, and there he stayed until he became a man. Paulsen joined the army where he served for 3 years. Afterward, he maintained a variety of unfulfilling jobs until he was bit by the writing bug. As it so happens, literature followed him everywhere. 

Writing Career

While working in the “aerospace departments” of Bendix and Lockheed, Paulsen suddenly realized that he could have a career in writing. His writing journey took off later after working as an associate editor and learning the ropes of writing and editing. Paulsen’s own experiences would play a major role in his later books and stories.

In one story, Dogsong (1985), Paulsen tells the story of an Inuit boy engaging with his cultural heritage while taking a dogsled team on an arduous journey. Critics nominated the novel as the 1986 Newbery Honor Book. Though the novel deals with a fictional protagonist, it deals with Paulsen’s own experience running Alaska’s Iditarod dogsled race. Moreover, Paulsen’s life experiences continued propelling his fiction, from “several memoirs and numerous volumes of nonfiction,” writing that faced the reader of realism and attention to detail. Additionally, Hatchet (1987) earned him a second Newbery Honor and he would later win a third for The Winter Room (1989).

In total, Paulsen’s books have sold more than 35 million copies.

Later Life and Death

Paulsen spent a life outdoors, whether from working on his aunt and uncle’s farm, or serving in the military. He eventually ran the Iditarod dogsled twice, and sailed “up to Alaska and back to the Sea of Cortez” (Balaban). Naturalist and realist writers have a lot in common as well, and the comparisons Paulsen has drawn from fans and critics leaned closer to his appearance than his actual writing style.

“He was often compared with Ernest Hemingway,” writes Christopher Borrelli for the Chicago Tribune, “who was also fond of the wilderness, wrote brisk sentences full of violence, and wore a white beard and weathered face…”

The rugged individualistic characterization clearly found its way into his writing, as did the introspection and detail of his characters. 

He died from cardiac arrest in October, 2021.

Works Cited

Balaban, Samantha. “Beloeved children’s author and wilderness enthusiast Gary Paulsen has died at 82.” NPR. Oct. 14^th, 2021.

Borrelli, Christopher. “Hard-knock life: Gary Paulsen, writer of survival stories for kids, is an author worth remembering.” Chicago Tribune. Jan. 21^st, 2022. Web. https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/books/ct-ent-gary-paulsen-northwind-appreciation-20220121-maf6y62gczcexgzpczanwk3dwy-story.html

Maughan, Shannon. “Obituary: Gary Paulsen.” Publishers Weekly. Oct. 14^th, 2021.

Risen, Clay. “Gary Paulsen, Author of Young-Adult Adventures, Dies at 82.” The New York Times. Oct. 14, 2021. Web: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/14/books/gary-paulsen-dead.html

“In-Depth Written Interview with Gary Paulsen.” Teaching Books. Feb. 12th, 2010. Web: http://www.teachingbooks.net/interview.cgi?id=91&a=1/