“Don’t think that the good stuff happens to somebody else. It’s happening to you.”

This was one piece of advice author Jack Gantos gave to the St. Paul Academy and Summit School upper school students when he spoke at the BookFest kickoff assembly on Nov. 15.

Gantos has written books for readers of all ages, from picture books such as Rotten Ralph, and shorter chapter books like his Joey Pigza series, to memoirs geared toward an older audience. One of his most popular books is Dead End in Norvelt, which won the 2012 Newbery Award and the Scott O’Dell Award for Best Historic Fiction.

Gantos moved around a lot growing up. He was born in Mount Pleasant, PA, but later moved to Florida. His childhood in south Florida was where he found inspiration for many of his books. “I didn’t get started by thinking that the good stuff happens to someone else. I got started writing good books because I thought ‘you know what the world I live in, every moment of it, something interesting is happening to me.’ Physically, emotionally, mentally. And that’s what I should be writing about,” Gantos said.

Many of his Gantos’s book are based on real life experiences. For instance, Gary Pagoda was a main character in The Trouble in Me, as well as Gantos’s neighbor growing up who he referred to as “the sociopath next door”. He described Pagoda’s clothing, from his black leather motorcycle jacket to the Sears underpants he wore in place of pants, getting a laugh from the audience. Gantos showed a Spy Map he created for his neighborhood, inspired by Harriet the Spy. The map was centered around Pagoda and the games he taught Gantos, called The Pagoda Olympics. These Olympics consisted of games such as Submarine Hunt, in which Pagoda put diesel fuel in the pool, set it on fire, and Gantos and Pagoda’s brother would jump into the flaming pool.

“If you survived [this round], then you moved on to the next round,” Gantos said.

After all of that action, Gantos would head home and record what happened in his journal.

“I had my lists of possible story ideas, my lists of emotions. I would then have my structure in this journal, so I could take each one of these Pagoda stories, and then I would go home to my journal, and I would write them all down,” Gantos said.

His #1 tip for students interested in writing?

“I think everybody in this room should have a journal that you write in,” Gantos said.

Visit his website for more information at  http://www.jackgantos.com/ and books from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, ibooks and more.