Background

Eric Walters was born on March 3, 1957, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is a son of Eric Walters, a woodworker, and Christine Walters, a homemaker.

Education

Eric Walters spent his childhood in the west-end Toronto. His mother died when he was four and he and his older sister ended up raising themselves. For much of his youth, he ran wild, playing in the stockyards that formed part of his neighborhood, running through sewers, and fleeing the police. His world was populated by “smart people pushed in the wrong directions,” as he noted, and these are the people who provided the dramatic backdrop to his stories.

Walters received a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology with honors at York University in 1979. It was followed by a Bachelor in Social Work four years later, and by a Master in Social Work in 1985.

Walters pursued his studies at the University of Toronto where he obtained a Bachelor of Education degree in 1989.

In 2013, he received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Wilfred Laurier University.

Career

With a diploma in social work and in teaching, Eric Walters started his career right in these two areas at the end of the 1970s. So, from 1979 to 1981, he was affiliated with Children’s Aid Society in Simcoe County, Ontario, and then moved to the Region of Peel organization where he served part-time for four more years while teaching. He has served in other social organizations, like mental health treatment centers and emergency departments as well.

It wasn’t until 1991 that Eric Walters, who had pursued a career as a social worker before becoming a teacher, decided to try his hand at writing children’s books. As he read aloud novels to the young students in his classes and taught them the rudiments of writing, he became intrigued by the idea of writing books himself.

After this, creative writing classes became a sharing process for Walters and the students. They took turns reading one another’s writing, and he expected the students to give his work the same critical appraisal that he gave theirs. In fact, it was the students’ enthusiasm after hearing the first draft of ‘Stand Your Ground’ that sparked him to send the completed work to a publisher. Though it was rejected by the first seven he approached, he persisted until Stoddart Publishing finally accepted it in 1994. The volume was sold out instantly.

The debut publication was followed by a great number of other books for children and youth, highly appreciated both by critics and young readers. Walters’s recent books include ‘The Rule of Three’ trilogy, ‘Today is the Day’, ‘Fourth Dimension’, ‘Elephant Secret’, ‘Always with You’ and several others.

Achievements

• Eric Walters is an accomplished and prolific writer who has published more than a hundred novels and picture books highly appreciated by critics and young readers.
  
  His volumes have been translated into many languages, including French, German, Japanese, Italian, Mandarin, Spanish, and Portuguese.
  
  The author has been a recipient of such awards as the Red Maple Award (four times), the Silver Birch Award (three times), UNESCO International Prize, Sakura Medal, and the Order of Canada among others.

Works

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  • Elephant Secret

    (We Bought a Zoo meets Jurassic Park in a gripping story f...)

    2018
  • The Bully Boys

    (The book tells the story of fourteen-year-old Thomas Robe...)

    2000
  • The Rule of Three: Will to Survive

    (Will to Survive is the gripping conclusion to the acclaim...)

    2016
  • War of the Eagles

    (During WWII, Jed’s English father serves as a fighter pil...)

    1997
  • Stranded

    (When a school trip goes wrong, Gordon finds himself stran...)

    1998
  • Always With You

    (A heartfelt picture book from bestselling children's auth...)

    2019
  • End of Days

    (A riveting page-turner story from Walters, and this time,...)

    2011
  • Wounded

    (Marcus and his sister are counting down the days until th...)

    2009
  • The Rule of Three

    (One shocking afternoon, computers around the globe shut d...)

    2014
  • I've Got an Idea

    (An action-packed story about friendship, trust and having...)

    2004
  • Laggan Lard Butts

    (Sam Campbell's school team, the Laggan Lairds, always los...)

    2006
  • Stand Your Ground

    (Sometimes the longest journey is back to where you belong...)

    1994
  • Fourth Dimension

    (In a world with no power, chaos soon descends. A powerful...)

    2018
  • Diamonds in the Rough

    (I pulled out the picture Cole had given us...my gaze fell...)

    1998
  • Trapped in Ice 1997
  • Camp X 2002
  • Hoop Crazy 2001

Views

Quotations: "I'm a big believer in bibliotherapy. Books have the power to change lives: what we think and what we do."

"I don't chase publishers. Publishers chase me."

"I prefer writing children’s novels because they are like morality plays. There is much more right and wrong in them. In adult novels, it’s almost as if you have to emphasize the bad or wrong, and I don’t want the wrong people to win. I like happy endings."

"The most important thing anybody ever told me about writing was to write what you know and the only way to get to know things is to do your homework and research before you write."

"It doesn't matter what you have if you can't protect it."

Connections

Eric Walters married Anita, a social worker, on December 26, 1984. The family produced three children named Christina, Nicholas, and Julia.

Father:

Eric Walters

Mother:

Christine Walters

Wife:

Anita Walters

Daughter:

Christina Walters

Son:

Nicholas Walters

Daughter:

Julia Walters

References

• Eric Walters's Official Website