Rick Riordan


Richard Russell Riordan Jr. is an American author. He is known for writing the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, about a twelve-year-old Percy Jackson who discovers he is a son of the Greek god Poseidon. Riordan's books have been translated into forty-two languages and sold more than thirty million copies in the US. 20th Century Fox has adapted the first two books of his Percy Jackson series as part of a series of films. His books have spawned related media, such as graphic novels and short story collections.
Riordan's first full-length novel was Big Red Tequila, which became the first book in the Tres Navarre series. His big breakthrough was The Lightning Thief, the first novel in the five-volume Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, which placed a group of adolescents in a Greco-Roman mythological setting. Since then, Riordan has written The Kane Chronicles trilogy and The Heroes of Olympus series. The Kane Chronicles focused on Egyptian mythology; The Heroes of Olympus was the sequel to the Percy Jackson series. Riordan also helped Scholastic Press develop The 39 Clues series and its spinoffs, and penned its first book, The Maze of Bones. His most recent publications are three books in the Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard series, based on Norse mythology. The first book of his The Trials of Apollo series, The Hidden Oracle, was released in May 2016.

Life and career

Riordan was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. He graduated from Alamo Heights High School, and first attended the music program at North Texas State University, wanting to be a guitarist. He transferred to the University of Texas at Austin and studied English and History. He received his teaching certification in those subjects from the University of Texas at San Antonio. He taught English and Social Studies for eight years at Presidio Hill School in San Francisco.
Rick married Becky Riordan in 1985 on the couple's shared birthday. They have two sons, Haley and Patrick. They moved from San Antonio to Boston in June 2013, in conjunction with older son Haley starting college in Boston.
Riordan has created several successful book series. Tres Navarre, an adult mystery series about a Texas private eye, won the Shamus, Anthony, and Edgar Awards.
He conceived the idea for the Percy Jackson series as bedtime stories about ancient Greek heroes for his son Haley. Haley had been diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, inspiring Riordan to make the titular protagonist ADHD and dyslexic. Riordan published the first novel in the series, The Lightning Thief, in 2005. Four sequels followed, with the last, The Last Olympian, in 2009. Prior to Percy Jackson, Riordan had written the Tres Navarres series, a series of mystery novels for adult readers.
His Percy Jackson and the Olympians series features the titular twelve-year-old who discovers he is the modern-day son of the ancient Greek god Poseidon. Twentieth Century Fox purchased the film rights and released a in 2010. Following the success of Percy Jackson, Riordan created The Kane Chronicles, which features a modern-day Egyptian pantheon and two new sibling protagonists, Sadie and Carter Kane. Riordan also created a sequel series to Percy Jackson, The Heroes of Olympus.
Riordan also helped create the children's book series The 39 Clues. He authored several of its books, including The Maze of Bones, which topped The New York Times Best Seller list on September 28, 2008. He also wrote the introduction to the Puffin Classics edition of Roger Lancelyn Green's Tales of the Greek Heroes, in which he states that the book influenced him to write his Greek mythology series.

Awards

  1. Big Red Tequila
  2. The Widower's Two-Step
  3. The Last King of Texas
  4. The Devil Went Down to Austin
  5. Southtown
  6. Mission Road
  7. Rebel Island

    Percy Jackson & the Olympians

  8. The Lightning Thief
  9. The Sea of Monsters
  10. The Titan's Curse
  11. The Battle of the Labyrinth
  12. The Last Olympian

    Related books

  13. The Demigod Files
  14. The Ultimate Guide
  15. Percy Jackson and the Singer of Apollo
  16. Percy Jackson's Greek Gods
  17. Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes
  18. Camp Half-Blood Confidential
  19. The Percy Jackson Coloring Book
  20. The Lightning Thief: Illustrated Edition

    The Heroes of Olympus

  21. The Lost Hero
  22. The Son of Neptune
  23. The Mark of Athena
  24. The House of Hades
  25. The Blood of Olympus

    Related books

  26. The Demigod Diaries
  27. Demigods of Olympus

    Graphic novels

  28. The Lightning Thief Graphic Novel
  29. The Red Pyramid Graphic Novel
  30. The Sea of Monsters Graphic Novel
  31. The Titan's Curse Graphic Novel
  32. The Lost Hero Graphic Novel
  33. The Throne of Fire Graphic Novel
  34. The Son of Neptune Graphic Novel
  35. The Serpent's Shadow Graphic Novel )

    The Kane Chronicles

  36. The Red Pyramid
  37. The Throne of Fire
  38. The Serpent's Shadow

    Related books

  39. Survival Guide
  40. Brooklyn House Magician's Manual

    The 39 Clues series

  41. The Maze of Bones
  42. Introduction to The 39 Clues: The Black Book of Buried Secrets
  43. Vespers Rising

    Stand alone novels

  44. Cold Springs

    ''Demigods and Magicians'' crossover collection

Published individually first, then as an anthology titled Demigods and Magicians in 2016.
  1. The Son of Sobek
  2. The Staff of Serapis
  3. The Crown of Ptolemy

    Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard

  4. The Sword of Summer
  5. The Hammer of Thor
  6. The Ship of the Dead

    Related books

  8. The Magnus Chase Coloring Book
  9. 9 from the Nine Worlds

    The Trials of Apollo

  10. The Hidden Oracle
  11. The Dark Prophecy
  12. The Burning Maze
  13. The Tyrant's Tomb
  14. The Tower of Nero

    Related books

  15. Camp Jupiter Classified

    Other

  16. Introduction to the anthology Tales of the Greek Heroes, Roger Lancelyn Green
  17. Introduction to the essay collection Demigods and Monsters

    Rick Riordan Presents

In September 2016, Disney-Hyperion announced a new Rick Riordan imprint. The imprint is called "Rick Riordan Presents" and was launched in March 2018. It is headed by Riordan's editor, Stephanie Owens Lurie.
Lurie said that Riordan had been approached about an imprint several years ago but initially dismissed the idea because of his heavy workload. Later, he reported back that he had been "toying with the idea" and was "willing to go forward with a publishing line that was not a brand extension for his own work but a platform for Riordan to bring other great writers to the attention of his vast and loyal audience." She also said that the imprint planned to launch with two then undetermined books. "The point of making this announcement now is to get the word out about what we’re looking for.”
The imprint will not publish books written by Riordan, "whose role will be closer to curator". In an interview with the Iowa Gazette, Riordan said, "Instead of me writing all of the mythologies we are going to look for authors who already are writing about that stuff. If I feel like I can recommend them ... we’re going to have them out here in the spotlight." A focus will be placed on "diverse, mythology-based fiction by new, emerging, and under-represented authors". Lurie expressed hopes that the imprint will help satisfy Riordan fans without asking the author to write more than his usual two books a year.