Happy 80th, Sandra Scoppettone! (YA novelist: "The Late Great Me," 1976)

[leno...@yahoo.com]

She lives in Southold, Long Island, New York.

"The Late Great Me," about a teenage alcoholic girl, was filmed for TV and won an Emmy.

She's also written mysteries - the "Lauren Laurano" series.

http://picksbypat.blogspot.com/2014/06/writers-born-today-sandra-scoppettone.html

Excerpt:

"In 1991 she published the first in the Lauren Laurano P.I. novel series, Everything You Have Is Mine. The series featured a smart and sassy lesbian private eye, one of the first to depict gay characters who work, fall in love, have affairs, and get mixed up in murder..."

http://sandrascoppettone.blogspot.com/
(her blog)

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/24374.Sandra_Scoppettone
(reader reviews - note that it claims she was born on Jan. 1, a date that often seems to get used online whenever a poster doesn't REALLY know when someone was born)

http://www.cozy-mystery.com/sandra-scoppettone.html
(her mysteries and a few book covers)

http://brinsbookblog.com/late-great-sandra-scoppettone/
(blog on "The Late Great Me")

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzuki_Beane

Excerpt:

"Suzuki Beane is a humor book written in 1961 by Sandra Scoppettone and illustrated by Louise Fitzhugh. The novel is a downtown satire on Kay Thompson's Eloise series (1956-59).[1] First published in hardcover by Doubleday & Company, Suzuki Beane reappeared as a McFadden Books paperback that same year.

"The story, sometimes described as 'the Eloise of Greenwich Village', is told from the viewpoint of a young child of Bleecker Street beats. Little Suzuki encounters a different lifestyle when she becomes friends with Henry Martin, a rich kid from the Upper East Side. The two learn about life, love and how to deal with prejudice in the early 1960s. The pair finally decide to 'run away from home and start a village where a Square can be a square and a swinging cat can swing in peace.' "

https://www.google.com/search?q=sandra+scoppettone&biw=1280&bih=598&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiR_tyUgYfNAhXNCD4KHWcyDJYQ_AUIBigB#tbm=isch&q=sandra+scoppettone+books
(book covers and photos)

https://www.fantasticfiction.com/s/sandra-scoppettone/
(more covers)

Excerpt:

"Sandra Scoppettone first emerged as one of the best hard-boiled mystery writers using the name Jack Early for her first three novels that included A Creative Kind of Killer (1984) that won the Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America for best first novel. She had started writing seriously since the age of 18 when she moved to New York from South Orange, New Jersey. Scoppettone in the 1960s collaborated with Louise Fitzhugh and in the 1970s wrote important young adult novels. The Late Great Me depicting teenage alcoholism won an Emmy Award in 1976. Her real name was revealed in the 1990s with the start of a series featuring PI Lauren Laurano. Scoppettone shares her life with writer Linda Crawford."

http://guyslitwire.blogspot.com/2015/09/happy-endings-are-all-alike-by-sandra.html

Excerpt:

"Happy Endings Are All Alike might seem like an odd choice for Guys Lit Wire, where we aim to recommend books for primarily teenage boys, but this is a really interesting historical novel that provides a unique peek at life for GBLTQ teens in the 1970s. Any teen interested in life for this minority group in the recent past is going to be fascinated by this novel and likely also horrified by the events that take place in the course of the story."

http://www.fictiondb.com/author/sandra-scoppettone~23327.htm
(more book covers)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_Scoppettone

http://www.livrenpoche.com/livres-occasion.html?auteur=Sandra+Scoppettone
(book covers - in French!)

https://www.bookbrowse.com/author_interviews/full/index.cfm/author_number/1184/sandra-scoppettone
(long interview)

Excerpt:

Q: Your earliest novels were for young adults and focused on societal issues or problems. For over 20 years you've written exclusively about crime. Explain your transition from one to the other. They seem quite far apart.

A: It wasn't actually a transition as you'll see. I was known for writing 'hot' topics for YAs. But that was never my intention. I wrote about what interested me. Alcoholism, rape, homosexuality, MS, all for specific reasons. Over the same period when I was writing YAs I wrote three crime novels for adults. One was a private eye novel but it was under a pseudonym. The last YA I wrote was a mystery. It was called Playing Murder. I enjoyed writing this even though after 100 pages I realized I'd killed the wrong person and had to start all over. I think that was the first novel I wrote on a computer. By then I felt I'd said all I wanted to in and to YAs. So having written three crime-related novels already it was a natural progression for me to switch over.

http://www.sarahweinman.com/confessions/2005/06/the_idiosyncrat.html
(2005 interview with Scoppettone and Marijane Meaker)

Excerpt:

Meaker: Why did you abandon the YA field when you had such a good reputation?

Scoppettone: Did I have a good reputation? I'm not sure about that. I was accused more than once of writing about "hot topics" because I wrote about gays, lesbians, rape, and alcoholism. The truth is I wrote about what interested me. But by the time I got to Playing Murder, I was already writing adult crime novels. I had nothing more to say to YAs. I think I'd exhausted the topics that were important to me and I wanted to move on. I've never said never again. If I thought I had something to say in that form I'd do it. By the way, before I wrote my first YA I read dozens of them, including you.

http://poesdeadlydaughters.blogspot.com/2007/04/interview-with-sandra-scoppettone.html
(2007 interview)

http://criminal-e.blogspot.com/2011/06/sandra-scoppettone-interview-creative.html
(2011 interview)

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0778698/
(short filmography)

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=sandra+scoppettone&tbm=vid
(a few videos - one is about Suzuki Beane!)

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/17/nyregion/writers-falling-for-the-lull-of-the-north-fork.html?pagewanted=all
(article from 1998 that briefly mentions Sandra)

WRITINGS

YOUNG-ADULT NOVELS
•Trying Hard to Hear You, Harper (New York, NY), 1974.
•The Late Great Me, Putnam (New York, NY), 1976.
•Happy Endings Are All Alike, Harper (New York, NY), 1978.
•Long Time between Kisses, Harper (New York, NY), 1982.
•Playing Murder, Harper (New York, NY), 1985.

NOVELS; FOR ADULTS
•Some Unknown Person, Putnam (New York, NY), 1977.
•Such Nice People, Putnam (New York, NY), 1980.
•Innocent Bystanders, New American Library (New York, NY), 1983.
•Beautiful Rage, Five Star Mysteries (Waterville, ME), 2004.
•This Dame for Hire, Ballantine (New York, NY), 2005.

"LAUREN LAURANO" MYSTERY SERIES
•Everything You Have Is Mine, Little, Brown (New York, NY), 1991.
•I'll Be Leaving You Always, Little, Brown (New York, NY), 1993.
•My Sweet Untraceable You, Little, Brown (New York, NY), 1994.
•Let's Face the Music and Die, Little, Brown (New York, NY), 1996.
•Gonna Take a Homicidal Journey, Little, Brown (New York, NY), 1998.
Beautiful Rage, 2004;
This Dame for Hire, 2005;
Too Darn Hot, 2006.

NOVELS; UNDER PSEUDONYM JACK EARLY
•A Creative Kind of Killer, F. Watts (New York, NY), 1984, published under name Sandra Scoppettone, Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 1995.
•Razzamatazz, F. Watts (New York, NY), 1985, published under name Sandra Scoppettone, Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 1995.
•Donato and Daughter, Dutton (New York, NY), 1988, published under name Sandra Scoppettone, Carroll & Graf (New York, NY), 1995.

PICTURE BOOKS
•Suzuki Beane, illustrated by Louise Fitzhugh, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1961.
•Bang Bang You're Dead, illustrated by Louise Fitzhugh, Harper (New York, NY), 1968.

PLAYS
•Home Again, Home Again Jiggity Jig, produced at Cubiculo Theatre, New York, NY, 1969.
•Something for Kitty Genovese (one-act), performed by Valerie Bettis Repertory Company, 1971.
•Stuck, produced at Eugene O'Neill Memorial Theatre, Waterford, CT, 1972, produced at Open Space Theatre, New York, NY, 1976.

OTHER
•Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers (screenplay), Maron-New Line, 1972.
•Love of Life (teleplay), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS-TV), 1972.
•A Little Bit Like Murder (teleplay), American Broadcasting Companies (ABC-TV), 1973.


Adaptations
•The Late Great Me was adapted as a film by Daniel Wilson Productions, 1982; Donato and Daughter was adapted as a television movie, CBS-TV, 1993.



Lenona.

[leno...@yahoo.com]

http://www.encyclopedia.com/article-1G2-2698900120/scoppettone-sandra-1936.html
(includes booklist and awards)