Rick Riordan

Rick Riordan was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. Riordan's family came from Cork, Ireland.^[8] 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.^[9][10] In 2021, Riordan completed an online master's degree in Gaelic literature offered by the University College Cork.^[8]

Rick married Rebecca "Becky" Klahn in 1985 on the couple's shared birthday.^[1][11] 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.^[11][12]

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.^[13]

He conceived the idea for the Percy Jackson series as bedtime stories about ancient Greek heroes for his son Haley.^[14] Haley had been diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, inspiring Riordan to make the titular protagonist hyperactive and dyslexic.^[15] 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.^[16]

His Percy Jackson & the Olympians series features the titular twelve-year-old who discovers he is the modern-day son of the ancient Greek god Poseidon. 20th Century Fox purchased the film rights and released two feature film adaptations between 2010 and 2013. 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.^[17] Riordan also created a sequel series to Percy Jackson, The Heroes of Olympus.^[4]

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.^[18] 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.^[19]

In 2022, Riordan co-wrote the pilot for the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series on Disney+ and is serving as an executive producer for the show.^[20] Disney had earlier acquired Fox in 2019, allowing it to gain the rights to adapt the Percy Jackson novels.^[21] Riordan won an Emmy Award as an executive producer when the show's first season won Outstanding Young Teen Series, and a second Emmy as a writer when the pilot episode won Outstanding Writing for a Young Teen Program at the 3rd Children's and Family Emmy Awards.^[22]

Riordan's works of children's literature center around an adaptation of mythology for modern readers and for children. He has used Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Norse and combinations thereof in a total of five separate novel series. The mythology used in his works possesses elements unique to his series, but has a largely historical basis. Some of its characteristics include an emphasis on human-divine interaction and a preference for anglicized names. Examples include:

• Greco-Roman mythology: Camp Half-Blood Chronicles
  • Percy Jackson & the Olympians
  • The Heroes of Olympus
  • The Trials of Apollo
  • The Nico di Angelo Adventures
• Egyptian mythology: The Kane Chronicles
• Norse mythology: Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard

Riordan's sources for the mythology used in his books are surmised from isolated comments on the subject during various interviews, as he has never released a list of any kind. These sources begin with the myths and the derivations thereof that he was exposed to as a child. Unnamed "novels on Norse mythology", suggested to him by a teacher who noticed his interest in The Lord of the Rings, were his first introduction to mythology and continue to influence his writing today.^[23][24] The author also claims to have read such notable classics as The Iliad and The Odyssey, and to use his "general knowledge" of a given mythology as a basis for his stories.^[25] As far as Greek mythology is concerned, Riordan has stated that Tales of the Greek Heroes by Roger Lancelyn Green—called by its author a "retelling of the Greek myths... based on multitudinous sources"—was one of his first introductions to that type of myth, and is in part responsible for his decision to interpret myths in his own books.^[26] Finally, Riordan has stated that he uses modern sources such as The Theoi Project for fact-checking purposes, as needed.^[25]

None of his novels include a list of references. Percy Jackson's Greek Gods and Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes alone possess "Background Reading" sections, listing sources such as Robert Fagles's translation of The Aeneid and web sites such as the Encyclopedia Mythica.^[27][28]

Rick Riordan has been the most-awarded Goodreads Choice Award winner since surpassing Stephen King in 2020.^[29] Riordan was the recipient of the Goodreads Choice Award in Middle Grade and Children's category every year from 2011 to 2021, collecting 11 awards so far.

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.^[67]

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."^[67] 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."^[67]

The imprint does not publish books written by Riordan, "whose role [is] closer to curator."^[67] 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 [to my readers] ... we're going to have them out here in the spotlight."^[68] A focus will be placed on "diverse, mythology-based fiction by new, emerging, and under-represented authors". Lurie expressed hopes that the imprint would help satisfy Riordan fans without asking the author to write more than his usual two books a year.^[67]