John: how Looking for Alaska was written, revised and won the Printz Award (2006)
story · status: told 14× · last event: mentioned (2026-02-24)
Origin known from later mentions
2006 in the title is when this began; it first appears in the videos read here in 2011, so the earlier part is known only from what is said later.
Told alongside: The Fault in Our Stars: writing, title and publication (2011)
About: Looking for Alaska (novel), Michael L. Printz Award, Ilene Cooper, Keir Graff, Penguin Books, Booklist, The Cheesecake Factory
| date | event | what | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011-01-21 | told | John tells how Looking for Alaska came to exist and win the Printz Award: three years of night writing with Ilene Cooper's help, Keir Graff's title, Penguin's demand for extensive revisions, and the award call five years ago. | Looking for Alaska Five Years After the Printz Award 00:00:58 |
| 2011-06-06 | retold | John says that without Julie and, before her, his mentor and first editor Ilene Cooper, nothing anyone likes about Looking for Alaska would be in it. | Men Running on Tanks and the Truth about Book Editors 00:03:19 |
| 2011-08-31 (happened 2002) | retold | John retells how, after Booklist colleague Ilene Cooper heard his vague pitch over lunch, she spent two years from early 2002 helping him turn 40 single-spaced pages into Looking for Alaska. | How to Become An Adult 00:01:37 |
| 2013-10-29 | retold | John recalls handing his mentor Ilene Cooper 40 single-spaced pages that eventually became Looking for Alaska, within six months of returning to Booklist. | Perspective 00:02:38 |
| 2017-07-18 (happened 2006-01) | retold | Fourth: in January 2006, engaged and walking in New York with his parents to register for wedding presents, John got a call that Looking for Alaska had won the Printz Award; his dad photographed the moment. | Accio Decade Hallows 00:01:24 |
| 2019-01-15 | retold | From just after his 24th birthday John spent most nights and weekends on the novel that became Looking for Alaska: Booklist by day, review reading after work, then writing until 11 or midnight. | On Burning Resentment 00:00:00 |
| 2019-03-12 | retold | John says he wrote the book because he wanted to go home to the fall of 1993, smoking under the bridge with people he loved, loving peers ferociously and without fear. | Going Home with Alaska and Miles 00:01:27 |
| 2019-04-23 | retold | John's friend Keir came up with the title Looking for Alaska because John's ideas, 'White Flowers and Warm Malt Liquor' and 'Famous Last Words', were so bad. | untitled 00:00:29 |
| 2019-11-01 | retold | John says he wrote every night trying to work out how to live with guilt that can't be excused and how catastrophic it is to romanticize or essentialize people you claim to love. | On Looking Up to Your Little Brother 00:02:10 |
| 2020-04-07 | retold | While revising the novel that became Looking for Alaska, John told Sarah he was trying to be a writer; she replied that he was writing, so he was a writer. | I am an artist. 00:01:05 |
| 2020-11-03 | retold | Writing Alaska, John was obsessed with symmetry: the first part of the book had to have exactly as many days as the second. | Alaska for Looking 00:01:56 |
| 2021-09-14 | retold | John wrote parts of Looking for Alaska on lunch breaks, weekends and in book margins, writing six weeks every night and then not at all for two weeks to play FIFA 2002. | I do this every. single. tuesday. 00:01:15 |
| 2023-03-07 | retold | Looking for Alaska sold about 6,000 copies in its first year, made it to paperback, and 18 years later is still in print. | What's the Deal with Paperback Publishing? 00:01:56 |
| 2023-04-18 | retold | John got better, returned to work, reviewed hundreds more books, and wrote Looking for Alaska under the guidance of Bill's wife Ilene Cooper; it won the Printz Award. | goodbye to my friend 00:01:36 |
| 2023-10-17 | mentioned | This takes John back to 2001 and 2002, when at 23 he wrote exactly what he wanted, which became Looking for Alaska. | My Next Book 00:03:16 |
| 2026-02-24 | mentioned | On luck, John says a different Printz committee in 2005 might have chosen another book over Looking for Alaska, and his career would look very different. (hedged) | Risk Is a Privilege 00:01:27 |
What is said about it
13 statements, by date (the events above are the turns of the thread; these are the details).
- 2011-01-21 · Looking for Alaska Five Years After the Printz Award — John: The most important moment of John's professional life came five years ago, almost to the day: the call saying Looking for Alaska, his first novel, had won the Printz Award. — 00:00:16
- 2011-01-21 · Looking for Alaska Five Years After the Printz Award — John: It meant more because John's first job after college was as a temp at Booklist, where on his first day he retyped the speeches from the first Printz Award reception. — 00:00:24
- 2011-01-21 · Looking for Alaska Five Years After the Printz Award — John wrote the book at night and on weekends for three years with constant help from his friend Ilene Cooper, one of his bosses at Booklist and an author, who read about a dozen drafts. — 00:01:07
- 2011-01-21 · Looking for Alaska Five Years After the Printz Award — John: The book wasn't called Looking for Alaska until John's friend Keir Graff came up with the title, for which John says he paid him two dollars. (playful) — 00:01:14
- 2011-01-21 · Looking for Alaska Five Years After the Printz Award — John: Ilene and John sent the manuscript to Penguin, which agreed to publish it provided he revised extensively, more extensively than he imagined. — 00:01:22
- 2011-01-21 · Looking for Alaska Five Years After the Printz Award — John: When Penguin bought it, the book wasn't about a boy who memorizes famous last words; much of what readers like, from the Great Perhaps to the labyrinth, came out of the revisions. — 00:01:34
- 2011-01-21 · Looking for Alaska Five Years After the Printz Award — John: After the book came out and twelve people in a room chose it for the award, John was really happy, but part of him thought 'so what?'. — 00:02:24
- 2011-08-31 · How to Become An Adult — John: After college John worked a few months as a student chaplain at a children's hospital, then at Booklist, where 90% of his job was typing ten-digit codes; older coworkers helped him with grown-up things. — 00:01:37
- 2011-08-31 · How to Become An Adult — John says Booklist colleague Ilene Cooper, author of 20+ children's books, agreed over lunch at the Cheesecake Factory that his vague boarding-school novel idea sounded great. — 00:02:03
- 2013-10-29 · Perspective — John: Two weeks later John went back to Booklist, and within six months handed his mentor Ilene Cooper 40 single-spaced pages of what became Looking for Alaska. — 00:02:38
- 2019-01-15 · On Burning Resentment — John: In fact John had many breaks: his Booklist editor Ilene Cooper mentored him through the writing, and Booklist paid him, modestly, to read and write about books. — 00:00:29
- 2019-11-01 · On Looking Up to Your Little Brother — John: Watching it took John back to writing the first draft of Looking for Alaska alone in a small furnished Chicago apartment, recovering from what would now be called a mental health crisis. (hedged) — 00:01:41
- 2020-11-03 · Alaska for Looking — John: To serve that symmetry he made 'remembered' appear exactly one more time than 'forgotten'. — 00:02:26