House of Stairs

William Sleator was an American author of children’s and young adult fiction. Born in 1945 in Maryland, Sleator died in 2011 in Thailand, where he lived part of the year. After graduating from Harvard with a degree in writing, Sleator started his career as a professional pianist in the UK and the US but eventually turned to writing full-time. He stated:

I’ve always been interested in both writing and music. When I first started getting published, I also worked as a rehearsal pianist for the Boston Ballet, touring with them all over the USA and Europe—I wasn’t making enough money from writing to support myself. [...] When book sales picked up and I started speaking at schools—which was very lucrative—I quit the ballet job (Antosca, Nick. “An Interview With William Sleator, YA Novelist.” HuffPost, 18 Mar. 2010).

Sleator’s first book, The Angry Moon, was published in 1970 and received a Caldecott Honor, one of the most prestigious awards in Children’s Literature. After releasing two novels based on his personal experiences, Blackbriar in 1972 and Run in 1973, Sleator then published House of Stairs in 1974, paving the way for his success in the