Patterson James - Biography of James Patterson

James Patterson is a tremendously successful American novelist who specializes in the thriller genre. He enjoys a huge fan base mainly due to his writing style, which is fast paced and packed full of interesting characters and plot twists that readers don't see coming. Patterson delivers his fast-paced material through witty dialogue, short paragraphs, and very short chapters. His physical descriptions of characters in the book accompanied by lengthy back stories and personality descriptions make readers feel like they personally know the characters.

Patterson's first novel, The Thomas Berryman Number , was a mystery thriller that was turned down over thirty times before it was finally published. In its first publication, the novel sold a modest 10,000 copies and was not considered a huge success. However, the novel went on to win the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best New Novel.

Writing was not always Pattersons first choice. He enjoyed a successful career as an ad executive before retiring and becoming a full-time writer in 1985. Although he had finished several books while he was still working in the ad industry, he concentrated mainly on his ad career for many years.

James Patterson has said that he writes suspense novels because he wants readers to be amazed and filled with excitement while reading. Judging by the amount of time his books have spent on the New York Times Best Sellers list, he has successfully caught his readers attention. However, Patterson has been the target of harsh criticism from other writers due to the huge quantity of novels he produces in short amounts of time compared to other writers in the genre. In 2006, an article by Jonathan Mahler for the New York Times states that James Patterson may not be as easily recognized as other writers in his genre including Stephen King, John Grisham or Dan Brown, but his book sales greatly outweigh the sales of the previous three authors combined. Others hold that Patterson is able to produce quality work with exceptional consistency that other writers, even seasoned best-seller authors like Stephen King, cannot match.

Patterson attributes a great deal of his success to his business knowledge and the distinguished people he hand-picks help him with research and editing. He has a wonderful, yet somewhat unusual, relationship with his publisher Little, Brown and Company, a division of the Hachette Book Group. Because Patterson is by far the publishing company's most successful writer, he enjoys more creative control and leniency than is offered to other writers. This is especially important to Patterson because he enjoys controlling every aspect of every novel, from its beginnings as a manuscript to the way it is placed on store shelves as a finished product. He also supervises a team that includes two editors, three devoted full-time Hachette employees, a host of assistants, a brand manager, a marketing director and a sales manager. Patterson is also well known for working with multiple co-authors on a number of his best-seller novels. Despite his enormous team, Patterson is intimately involved in every aspect of his career; he just delegates some responsibilities to those he knows will work in his best interest.

James Patterson was born March 22, 1947, in Newburgh, New York. He is the son of working-class parents, Charles Patterson and Isabelle Patterson, and has several siblings. His father, Charles, worked as a no-nonsense insurance broker and his mother, Isabelle, made her career as a teacher and a homemaker. James Patterson grew up in a house full of women that included his mother, sisters and grandmothers. It is said that Pattersons female-oriented family gave him a unique perspective on women, which he routinely reflects on when writing female characters in his novels.

Patterson spent many of his younger working days cooking and cleaning in his grandmother's family-style restaurant along with the majority of his immediate and extended family. Through this experience, Patterson was exposed to many different types of people from different walks of life. His exposure led him to understand people and relate to unique situations that other people were experiencing. His parents and extended family nurtured his hard-working, driven attitude and never put limits on what he could or should carry out in life.

James Patterson was encouraged to attend college by his big extended family, and he did, even though he had not quite decided what he wanted to do in the future. Patterson attended Manhattan College, a Roman Catholic liberal arts college in Bronx, New York, and received a bachelor's degree. In 1970, he decided to enroll in Vanderbilt University's English literature graduate program. He dropped out of the program after one year.

When Patterson first chose to go to college, he had reservations about his career path. He first pursued an Education degree, and later decided to switch to an English literature graduate degree. He changed his mind again several times over the course of his college years, uncertain what career path he most wanted to embrace.

During the summers between his semesters in college, Patterson took a temporary job at McLean Hospital as a medical aide. He did not pursue a career in the medical field, but the summer job was not a complete waste of the time, because it ended up being influential to Patterson's career in an unusual way. He spent a great deal of time leisurely reading books while he was working predominantly quiet night shifts at the hospital. It was during one of these night shifts that he was inspired by Robert Lowell, a fellow employee. Lowell loved poetry and shared his love of the written word with Patterson.In the short time they spent together, Patterson could not get enough of Lowell's opinions or suggestions. Patterson tried his own hand at writing and found he had a talent for the written word.

It would be a few more years before he focused his career on writing, though; instead, he choose a sensible career as a businessman. His first job was with J. Walter Thompson, an advertising agency, as an entry-level junior copywriter. With the help of his hard-working spirit and undying determination, he quickly worked his way up the corporate ladder, eventually becoming the CEO in 1990.

When he wasn't working at J. Walter Thompson, Patterson found time to write several books, which went on to become quite successful. Proving how dedicated Patterson is to his commitments, he stayed on as CEO of J. Walter Thompson until 1995, years after his books started garnering huge financial paychecks and gracing best seller lists around the world.

Awards that Patterson has won for his mystery novels include the Edgar Allan Poe Award, the BCA Mystery Guild's Thriller of the Year, the Reader's Digest Reader's Choice Award and the International Thriller of the Year Award.

After a long run of success with the mystery genre, Patterson eventually branched out to romance, non-fiction and children's books. In 2010, he won the Children's Choice Book Council's Children's Choice Awards "Author of the Year" Award. In addition to those awards, he is the first author to ever have two simultaneous titles on the New York Times Best Sellers list; one on the children's list and one on the adult list. He also earned a Guinness World Record in 2009 for having the highest number of novels ever published.

Patterson's best-selling books are his Alex Cross series, which feature an African-American forensic psychologist who formerly worked for the FBI and the Washington Police Department, and now works as a freelance government psychologist. Pattersons other best-selling series characters include Detective Michael Bennett; the complex women from the