Meet the Author

Cornelia Funke was born in 1958 in Dorsten, Germany. After she graduated from college, she worked as a social worker with children from difficult backgrounds. She returned to school three years later, this time to study book illustration at the Hamburg State College of Design. As an illustrator, she designed board games and illustrated children's books. But she soon became frustrated. Disappointed in the way some of the stories were told and wanting to draw fabulous creatures and magical worlds rather than familiar situations of school and home, she was finally inspired to write her own children’s books!

During her time working with children from deprived backgrounds, Cornelia had discovered the sorts of stories that grasped their imaginations. These were the stories she wanted to write — tales that would appeal to bookish children, and also inspire those children who hadn’t yet had positive reading experiences.

As a reader, Cornelia has always loved good fantasy, particularly British fantasy authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings), C. S. Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia), and J. M. Barrie (Peter Pan). Cornelia Funke’s own success is now international, demonstrating the universal appeal — and power — of her storytelling.

Cornelia researches for each novel meticulously. For example, before writing Inkheart, she did research about booksellers, book collectors, book thieves, and even book murderers. And she read up on martens and fire-eaters. She then imagined the characters and the places they might go. She wrote down plotlines for the first 20 chapters. Then — after about six months — she wrote the first sentence of Inkheart.

A major novel will take her about a year to write. She always does her own sketches — in pen and ink (her grandfather was a famous etcher) and she creates pictures of her own characters to help her write about them.

Three of the four novels she has published with Scholastic are being made into movies: The Thief Lord, Inkheart, and Dragon Rider!

Cornelia now lives in Los Angeles, CA with her 14-year-old daughter Anna and 9-year-old son Ben (Benjy). They have several pets: two Icelandic horses, a crazy dog, Luna, nicknamed Looney, and a very shy guinea pig.

 

To get the inside scoop on Cornelia Funke's writing process from the author herself, take a peek inside her writing room.