Sarge Writes Books
Scott M. Sargent
Author of Young Adult and Middle-Grade books.
Scott M. Sargent
When I was fifteen, a high school teacher submitted one of my short stories to a writing contest sponsored by a local college without telling me. She thought I would be ecstatic to learn my piece had won an award, but as a shy teenage boy, I was horrified. Even worse, they expected me to give a presentation at a statewide workshop held at a local college. My knees were like Jell-O through the whole ordeal.
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Traumatized, I turned my back on my love of writing and focused on math and architecture. After college, my creative side found a new outlet as a scenic designer in the theater. I learned how to read and analyze a script, but instead of designing a home for a family, the playwright became my client. I explored words to find their lessons and found visual ways to represent their meaning. Without realizing it, I was still writing, but I did so with images.
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I didn’t remember how much I had enjoyed writing until a director challenged me. He had trouble finding a script for a children’s show I was scheduled to design. As deadlines approached, he asked me to write one. I knew about three-act structure and story arcs, but critiquing someone else’s work wasn’t the same as creating something new. I reluctantly agreed.
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After more time and effort than I thought possible, the production opened to great reviews, and the company remounted the show a year later. More importantly, I was excited about rediscovering the joy and passion of the writing process. I’ve been writing ever since. In between all of that, I joined the Marines Corps, missed a year of college for the Gulf War, earned a degree in architecture, a minor in philosophy, worked for the biggest theater in the southeast, designed scenery, taught high school, and earned a master’s degree in creative writing.
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Contact me at: sarge@sargewritesbooks.com