Paul Zindel

Paul Zindel, Jr. (May 15, 1936 – March 27, 2003) was an American playwright, Young Adult novelist, and educator.

Early life

Zindel was born in Tottenville, Staten Island, New York to Paul Zindel, Sr., a policeman, and Betty Zindel, a nurse; his sister, Betty (Zindel) Hagen, was a year and a half older than him. Paul Zindel, Sr. ran away with his mistress when Zindel was two, leaving the trio to move around Staten Island, living in various houses and apartments.

Through his teen years he wrote plays, though he trained as a chemist at Wagner College and spent six months working at Allied Chemical as a chemical writer after graduating. Zindel took a creative writing course with the playwright Edward Albee while he was an undergraduate. He later quit and worked as a high school Chemistry teacher at Tottenville High School on Staten Island.

Career

In 1964, he wrote The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, his first and most successful play. The play ran off-Broadway in 1970, and on Broadway in 1971, and he received the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the work. It was also made into a 1972 movie by 20th Century Fox. Soon thereafter, Charlotte Zolotow, a vice-president at Harper & Row, contacted him about writing for her book label.