Although he is now a six-time best-selling author known for creating relatable characters, vivid settings, and unique magic systems, Sanderson was not a bred-in-the-womb writer. Like many adolescent boys, he avoided reading. But when his eighth-grade teacher convinced him to pick a book off her shelf, he chose Dragonsbane , by Barbara Hambly—because of its cool dragon cover.
“It was like the story of my mom, except in a fantasy world with dragons, and that was just awesome,” Sanderson says. “It had all the action and adventure, and it had all the relate-ability.”
Sanderson went on to read every fantasy book in his high school.
“Fantasy gives us this imagination, this power, this wonder, alongside real human problems, and it mixes all these things together in a package that is fun and readable and interesting,” he explains. “It grabbed me, and that’s when I decided I was going to be a fantasy writer—and I started writing.”
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