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Kurt Dinan has been a high school English teacher for the past 21 years. He works in the Cincinnati suburbs, where he lives with his wife and four children. He has published several short stories. Don't Get Caught is his first novel.
On your nightstand now:
Stand Off by Andrew Smith.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Sideway Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar. A teacher read this aloud to us in third grade and I vividly remember thinking, "Wait, Mrs. Gorf is turning the students into apples because she doesn't like them? What sort of awesomeness is this?!" The novel is probably the start of my twisted sense of humor.
Your top five authors:
Stephen King, Robert B. Parker, Andrew Smith, Chris Crutcher and A.S. King.
Book you've faked reading:
Oh man, where to begin? There are a lot of college novels I faked my way through reading. The one I remember most was The Canterbury Tales, which we were to read in the original Old English. I tried (sort of) for a few minutes, then gave up. On the day before the test, I went to the library, found a modern translation of the book, and read two of the stories. Then, brilliantly, I memorized two short sections of the novel in the original Old English and used them on the test to make it look like I really knew what I was talking about. I'm pretty sure I got an A in that class. So let that be a lesson to all of you.
Book you're an evangelist for:
The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate. We read this book to our son when it first came out. It's a perfectly plotted and beautifully written novel. I find myself thinking of Ivan, his elephant friend Ruby, and the stray dog Bob at odd times.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Plan B by Jonathan Tropper. I'd just turned 30 and was getting divorced when I saw this book with two people on the cover, one with "Thirty" on her shirt, and the other with "Sh*t" on his. It was pretty much exactly how I felt at the time. Little did I know Tropper would become one of my favorite writers.
Book that changed your life:
From the Borderlands: Stories of Terror and Madness. I was 35 when I discovered this in a used bookstore. I bought it for the Stephen King story, and in the back found an ad for a writer's workshop that Tom Monteleone, the book's editor, ran in Maryland. You had to submit a writing sample to get in, so I applied just to see if my stuff was good enough. Ultimately, I was accepted, was told by my wife, "Oh, you are going," and things have never been the same. If I hadn't found that book, there's no way I would be a writer today.
Favorite line from a book:
"Boo and I walked up the steps to the porch. His fingers found the front doorknob. He gently released my hand, opened the door, went inside, and shut the door behind him. I never saw him again." Obviously, To Kill a Mockingbird. It gives me chills every time!
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. I think everyone has a few books, movies, or albums that make them sit up and say, "Wait, you can do that? Oh my God." It's an exhilarating moment and your life is never the same again--it's wider and deeper than it was before. Vonnegut's novel was the first book that did this for me.