While channel surfing between reality TV and war coverage, the author felt the lines between the stories started to blur.
The idea for this book came to the author while she was waiting for a delayed train from Manchester to King's Cross, London.
The author and his wife were the only guests at an old hotel that seemed perfect for a ghost story. After having a nightmare that night the idea for this novel was born.
An important plot element in this novel was based on the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh's son in 1932.
This book has its origins as a bedtime story for the author's son after he ran out of Greek myths to tell him.
While recovering from trench fever contracted during WWI, this author and his wife would spend time in a glade where she would dance for him. He imagined her as an Elvish princess – which spawned the foundation for this novel.
Drought during the 1930s turned the Great Plains into the 'Dust Bowl' causing many to flee westward to California. The author drew on his own farm laboring experience and observations of the migrant camps to write this novella.
The sinking of the Essex, in 1820, after a whale struck it is the inspiration for this novel.
Longing to know her recent ancestors better, the author thought that if she wrote a story about them it would be like spending time with them.
While at school the author was a taste-tester for Cadbury, which made him imagine the incredible factories that companies must use to invent new products.
Reading Coral Island, the author felt that it was quite unrealistic. He wrote what he felt was a more realistic version, drawing on his experiences as a teacher.
The author was inspired after meeting Esther Earl, a teenage fan with thyroid cancer, at a Harry Potter convention.
After reading Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy, the author was inspired to come up with a science fiction story himself. He had an interest in the US Civil War and his brother was fighting in Vietnam – leading him to wonder what military training in the future would look like.
The author was inspired by stories his German Mother and Austrian Father would tell about their childhood and the acts of kindness they witnessed in Nazi Germany.
Working at a Veterans' Hospital, the author would talk to the patients under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs (he himself was a guinea pig for a CIA study), and came up with the idea for this novel.
Bored at work, the author took a stack of paper and started punching holes. The holes he punched reminded him of a book worm. Pitching the book idea to his editor, the worm was changed to a more endearing character.
From the age of 16, the author often found himself imagining a faun in a snowy wood, carrying an umbrella and parcels. When he was 40 he decided he'd try and turn it into a story.
The author, an Afghan refugee, was watching a news story that mentioned the Taliban had banned a childhood pastime of his. He wrote a short story about it which he expanded into a novel a couple of years later.
The author was travelling across Europe with a guidebook. While drunkenly staring at the stars in Innsbruck, he thought that it looked a lot more attractive out there than it did around him.
Reading a book about Albert Einstein, the author discovered particle physics and quantum mechanics, which she found 'exciting'.
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