19-year-old Kyle Prue will stop in Petoskey during his national book tour visiting middle and high school students this May. MyNorth Media entertainment writer Ross Boissoneau introduces us to the inspiring young award-winning author, actor, and comic before his free Crooked Tree Arts Center event.
Artist
Kyle Prue
How He Got His Start
Insomnia. Seriously. Prue couldn’t sleep one night, and after finally giving up on sleep around 5 a.m., he wrote out the plot of his trilogy. He took the different personalities of his siblings and himself, and the different paths people follow, and wrote a fantasy loosely based around them.
The first book in the Feud Trilogy, The Sparks, won state and national awards for Best Book for Young Adults. It was the runner-up for several other awards, and Prue won the International Moonbeam award for Best Young Author.
Prue is a graduate of Seacrest Country Day High School in Naples, Florida, and will be attending the University of Michigan, though he’s deferred entry into college to concentrate on finishing the next two books, The Flames and The Ashes, and his book tour.
Prue founded a non-profit, Sparking Literacy, to pair author visits with book donations for at-risk and underserved students. He often visits middle and high schools to talk with students.
Prue is also an actor with Snow Entertainment, and trains at Second City in Chicago.
Influences and Inspirations
Rick Riordan, JK Rowling, Suzanne Collins, Stephen King
Additional Background
In his presentations, Prue talks about the challenges of being a student and an author. He discusses his own journey into writing and the world of publishing, and the need to prioritize and balance your life. He said he was bullied while in middle school, and turned to creating a fantasy world where he could control the action. He decided to write YA fantasy because he was finding it more difficult to find books he was interested in.
“I wanted to write something that I would want to read and that would appeal to other kids my age,” he told DigitalPublishing.com.
He realized that his visits to schools were having a positive impact on the students, and that is when he founded his non-profit.
Quotes
“With a parental ban on internet, cell phones and TV in place, Kyle Prue was suffering from a case of insomnia. He found he had only one thing left to rely on: His imagination. And the result was Prue’s first novel.” – Macomb Daily News
“A crackling read, Feud: The Sparks builds a vivid world that is at once otherworldly and relatable. Characters spring from the page in a deft twist on classic mythology that belies Kyle Prue’s young age. He’s a voice to be heard.” – Scott Bowles, USA Today
Venue
Crooked Tree Arts Center in Petoskey
Date & Time
Thursday, May 5 at 7 p.m.
Ticket Information
Admission is free
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