Jerry Spinelli still remembers the Sunday night when he was awakened by a phone call. His novel, Maniac Magee, had just won the 1991 Newbery Medal. Jerry and his wife, Eileen, were so excited that they stayed up all night and went out to a local diner to celebrate. "Life hasn't been the same since," Spinelli recalls. Indeed, for decades Jerry Spinelli had sacrificed financial stability in pursuit of his dream to become an author. While raising six children, Jerry and Eileen were forced to make tough decisions when money was tight. "Nobody ever told me how impossibly hard that was going to be," Spinelli says. "It's one thing to write a book. It's another to get it published. It's yet another to sell enough to make enough money to pay a few bills." Watch the interview, view the interview transcript, read a short biography on Jerry Spinelli, or see a selected list of his books.