Part of my job here is to read young adult novels. I still have a full-time job, as an editor of reading and language arts textbooks at Harcourt School Publishers. That story is about both the people who are moving out and the people who are moving in. The destruction of the citrus groves all around me was the inspiration for Tangerine, my first young adult novel. Why did you select Florida as the setting for your novel Tangerine?īloor: Our part of Florida is in a state of transition between the old citrus economy and the more diverse economy that has replaced it.

As I recall, they were all basically the same: Chip and his friends would encounter some obstacle to winning the big game they would overcome the obstacle, and then they would win the big game. Who were your favorite authors growing up?īloor: My own reading as a child was consumed by the Chip Hilton sports stories by coach Clair Bee. I was suddenly popular, and I have pursued a career in writing ever since. I can vividly recall when my seventh-grade teacher challenged me to write and put on a series of silly commercials in front of the whole school. Even at a very young age, I wrote plays and stories to amuse my family and friends. Have you always wanted to be a writer? When did you start writing?īloor: Writing has always been a part of my life. We have two children _ Amanda, 15, and Spencer, 10. She still teaches middle school language arts here in Winter Garden, a small city northwest of Orlando. (Paul Fisher, the hero of Tangerine, and I both look at Florida as outsiders, although I have now been here for over half my life.) I taught middle school language arts in Fort Lauderdale. I graduated from Fordham University in New York and lived in New York, Boston and England before moving to Florida.

I played soccer there from the time I was 8, up into college. I guess a good place to start would be for you to tell us a little bit about yourself.īloor: I was born in Trenton, N.J. So, join me as I chat with Ed Bloor about Florida, writing and one of my favorite topics _ books.

Tangerine book edward bloor