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Paul Zindel
PaulZindel.gif
Born (1936-05-15)May 15, 1936
Tottenville, Staten Island, United States
Died March 27, 2003(2003-03-27) (aged 66)
New York City, New York, United States
Occupation Writer
Nationality American
Genre Drama, novels, screenplays
Notable works The Pigman
Notable awards Pulitzer Prize for Drama
1971
Margaret Edwards Award
2002
Spouse
Bonnie Hildebrand
​
​
(m. 1973; div. 1998)​

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.

Zindel wrote his first play in high school. Throughout 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. Albee became his mentor and was an advocate for Zindel. He later quit and worked as a high-school Chemistry and Physics teacher at Tottenville High School on Staten Island for ten years. Zindel seemed to gravitate toward behavior that allowed him to observe the reactions of others in strange situations: Olen Soifer, visiting with his father Dave, who was the long-time lab technician at the high school, remembers seeing Zindel wearing black shoes with the front of one cut off, such that his white-socked toes could not be missed sticking out of the shoe. (personal reminiscence)

Personal life and death

Zindel was married to Bonnie Hildebrand from 1973, divorcing her in 1998. They had two children; novelist Lizabeth Zindel, and son David, a publisher. Paul Zindel died in New York City from lung cancer in 2003, at the Jacob Perlow Hospice in Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan. He is buried in Moravian Cemetery, Staten Island.

Works

Plays

  • The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, 1964
  • The Ladies Should Be in Bed
  • And Miss Reardon Drinks A Little, 1967
  • Let Me Hear You Whisper, 1969
  • The Secret Affairs of Mildred Wild, 1972
  • Every 17 Minutes the Crowd Goes Crazy
  • Ladies at the Alamo, 1977
  • Amulets Against the Dragon Forces, 1989

Novels

The Zone Unknown

  • Loch, New York: HarperCollins, 1994.
  • The Doom Stone, New York: HarperCollins, 1995.
  • Raptor, New York: Hyperion, 1998.
  • Rats, New York: Hyperion, 1999.
  • Reef of Death, New York: HarperCollins, 1998.
  • Night of the Bat, New York: Hyperion, 2001.
  • The Gadget, New York: HarperCollins, 2001.

P.C. Hawke Mysteries

  • The Scream Museum, New York: Hyperion, 2001.
  • The Surfing Corpse, New York: Hyperion, 2001.
  • The E-Mail Murders, New York: Hyperion, 2001.
  • The Lethal Gorilla, New York: Hyperion, 2001.
  • The Square Root of Murder, 2002.
  • Death on the Amazon, 2002.
  • The Gourmet Zombie, 2002.
  • The Phantom of 86th Street, 2002.
  • Harry and Hortense at Hormone High, New York: Harper, 1985.

The Wacky Facts Lunch Bunch

  • Attack of the Killer Fishsticks, New York: Bantam, 1993.
  • Fifth Grade Safari, New York: Bantam, 1992.
  • Fright Party, New York: Bantam, 1993.
  • One Hundred Percent Laugh Riot, New York: Bantam, 1994.

The Pigman Trilogy

  • The Pigman, New York: Harper, 1968. ‡
  • The Pigman's Legacy, New York: Harper, 1981. ‡
  • The Pigman & Me, New York: HarperCollins, 1992. ‡

Other novels

  • My Darling, My Hamburger, New York: Harper, 1969. ‡
  • I Never Loved Your Mind, New York: Harper, 1970.
  • I Love My Mother, New York: Harper, 1975.
  • Pardon Me, You're Stepping on My Eyeball!, New York: Harper, 1976.
  • Confessions of a Teenage Baboon, New York: Harper, 1977.
  • The Undertaker's Gone Bananas, New York: Harper, 1978.
  • A Star for the Latecomer (with Bonnie Zindel), New York: Harper, 1980.
  • The Girl Who Wanted a Boy, New York: Harper, 1981.
  • To Take a Dare (with Crescent Dragonwagon), New York: Harper, 1982.
  • When a Darkness Falls Bantam Books, 1984.
  • The Amazing and Death-Defying Diary of Eugene Dingman, New York: Harper, 1987.
  • A Begonia for Miss Applebaum, New York: Harper, 1989.
  • David & Della, New York: HarperCollins, 1993.
  • Club de collecionistas de noticias
  • The Houdini Whodunit, 2002.
  • Death by CD, 2003.
  • The Petrified Parrot, 2003.
  • Camp Megadeath, 2003.

(‡) The Young Adult Library Services Association cited five books when Zindel won the 2002 Edwards Award.

Short stories

  • Love & Centipedes, 1999. Also included in Places I Never Meant to Be by Judy Blume.
  • Rachel’s Vampire, 2001. Also included in Lost and Found by Joan Abelove

Screenplays

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