Homer Hickam
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Homer "Sonny" Hickam, Jr. | |
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| Born: | February 19, 1943 Coalwood, West Virginia |
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| Occupation: | Writer, Aerospace Engineering |
| Genres: | Autobiography, Science Fiction |
| Website: | http://www.homerhickam.com |
Homer Hadley Hickam, Jr. (born February 19, 1943) is an American writer, best known for his autobiographical novel Rocket Boys: A Memoir, which was the basis for the film October Sky.
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[edit] Biography
Homer H. Hickam, was born on February 19, 1943, the second son of Homer, Sr. and Elsie Hickam, and was raised in Coalwood, West Virginia. While in high school Homer built many small rockets with his friends. He graduated from Big Creek High School in 1960 and from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (later known as Virginia Tech) in 1964 with a BS degree in Industrial engineering. A U.S. Army veteran, Mr. Hickam served as a First Lieutenant in the Fourth Infantry Division in Vietnam in 1967-1968 where he earned the Commendation and Bronze Star Medals. He served six years on active duty, leaving the service with the rank of Captain.
Hickam has been a writer since 1969 after his return from Vietnam. At first, he mostly wrote about his scuba diving adventures for a variety of different magazines. Then, after diving on many of the wrecks involved, he branched off into writing about the battle against the U-boats along the American east coast during World War II. This resulted in his first book, Torpedo Junction (1989), a military history best-seller published in 1989 by the Naval Institute Press.
Mr. Hickam was employed as an engineer for the U.S. Army Missile Command from 1971 to 1981 assigned to Huntsville, and Germany. He began employment with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration at Marshall Space Flight Center in 1981 as an aerospace engineer. During his NASA career, Mr. Hickam worked in spacecraft design and crew training. His specialties at NASA included training astronauts on science payloads, and extravehicular activities (EVA). He also trained astronaut crews for many Spacelab and Space Shuttle missions, including the Hubble Space Telescope deployment mission, the first two Hubble repair missions, Spacelab-J (the first Japanese astronauts), and the Solar Max repair mission. Prior to his retirement in 1998, Mr. Hickam was the Payload Training Manager for the International Space Station Program.
In 1998, Delacorte Press published Hickam's second book, Rocket Boys, the story of his life in the little town of Coalwood, West Virginia. It quickly became a very popular book. Rocket Boys has since been translated into eight languages and also released as an abridged audio book and electronic book. Among its many honors, it was selected by the New York Times as one of its "Great Books of 1998" and was an alternate "Book-of-the-Month" selection for both the Literary Guild and Doubleday book clubs. Rocket Boys was also nominated by the National Book Critics Circle as Best Biography of 1998. In February, 1999, Universal Studios released its critically-acclaimed film October Sky, based on Rocket Boys (The title October Sky is an anagram of Rocket Boys). Delacorte subsequently released a mass market paperback of Rocket Boys, re-titled October Sky. October Sky reached the New York Times # 1 position on their best-seller list.
Mr. Hickam's first fiction novel was Back to the Moon (1999) which was also simultaneously released as a hardcover, audio book, and eBook. It has also been translated into Chinese.
The Coalwood Way (2000), a memoir of Homer's hometown he calls "not a sequel but an equal," was published by Delacorte Press and is available in abridged audio, eBook, large print and Japanese. It was an alternate "Book-of-the-Month" selection for Doubleday book club. His third Coalwood memoir, a true sequel, was published in October 2001. It is titled Sky of Stone (2001). Sky of Stone is presently under development as a television movie. His final book about Coalwood was published in 2002, a self help/inspirational tome titled We Are Not Afraid: Strength and Courage from the Town That Inspired the #1 Bestseller and Award-Winning Movie October Sky.
His latest work is The Ambassador's Son (2005), published by St. Martin's Press. It is the second of his series of popular novels about Josh Thurlow, a Coast Guard officer during World War II. The series began with The Keeper's Son (2003), and will continue with The Far Reaches in 2007.
In 1984, Mr. Hickam was presented with Alabama's Distinguished Service Award for heroism shown during a rescue effort of the crew and passengers of a sunken paddleboat in the Tennessee River. Because of this award, Mr. Hickam was honored in 1996 by the United States Olympic Committee to carry the Olympic Torch through Huntsville, Alabama, on its way to Atlanta.
In 1999, the governor of the state of West Virginia issued a proclamation in honor of Mr. Hickam for his support of his home state and his distinguished career as both an engineer and author and declared an annual "Rocket Boys Day."
For recreation, Mr. Hickam still loves to SCUBA dive. He also jogs nearly every day. A new avocation is amateur paleontology. He works with Dr. Jack Horner in Montana every summer. Most of all, however, he loves to write.
On January 15, 2006, Hickam spoke at the memorial service in Buckhannon, West Virginia for 12 miners killed in an explosion at a Sago, West Virginia mine two weeks earlier. The service was televised nationally on CNN.
[edit] Family
Hickam is the second son of Homer Hickam, Sr., and Elsie Hickam of Coalwood, West Virginia, United States. He is married to Linda Terry Hickam, an artist and his first editor and assistant. They love their cats and share their time between homes in Alabama and the Virgin Islands. His nickname growing up was "Sonny."[1]
[edit] Books
Hickam initially wrote about his scuba diving adventures for a variety of different magazines. His first book, Torpedo Junction (1989), was a military history bestseller based on his research into German U-Boat attacks of the eastern American coast during World War II.
His next book, Rocket Boys: A Memoir (1998), began as a filler article in Air & Space magazine, in which he wrote about launching homemade rockets in 1950s Coalwood, West Virginia. He expanded the article into the novel, which has won many awards and been translated the world over, and in 1999 was adapted into the critically acclaimed movie October Sky. His first novel Back To The Moon (1999), was a thriller about a new space race, filled with insider information from his years at NASA.
Hickam has also written two more memoirs in the "Coalwood" series: The Coalwood Way (2000) and Sky of Stone (2001), and is currently writing the "Josh Thurlow" historical fiction series: The Keeper's Son (2003) and The Ambassador's Son (2005).
In February 2007, Hickam announced that he would be working with space tourist Anousheh Ansari on a book about her spaceflight experience.[2]
[edit] The Coalwood Series
- Rocket Boys (ISBN 0-385-33321-8) (movie: October Sky)
- The Coalwood Way (ISBN 0-385-33516-4)
- Sky of Stone (ISBN 0-440-24092-1)
- We Are Not Afraid (ISBN 0-7573-0012-X)
[edit] The Josh Thurlow Series
- The Ambassador's Son (ISBN 0-312-30192-8)
- The Keeper's Son (ISBN 0-312-30189-8)
- Torpedo Junction (ISBN 0-440-21027-5)
[edit] Stories of the Future and Past
- Back to the Moon (ISBN 0-385-33422-2)
