A fantasy comes true for a young writer

Magruder High School alum publishes first fantasy fiction book

Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2007

Click here to enlarge this photo J. Adam Fenster⁄The Gazette Drew Bowling of Derwood, a college sophomore and Col. Zadok Magruder High School graduate, shows off his recently published book during a visit to Barnes and Noble in Gaithersburg.

‘‘The Tower of Shadows,” a piece of fantasy fiction that 21-year-old Drew Bowling of Derwood started writing as a teenager, was published last month by Del Rey Books, the science fiction and fantasy division of Random House.

A recent book-signing event at Barnes and Noble bookstore in Gaithersburg cleared the stock in less than two hours, Bowling said.

‘‘This is my dream come true” to watch as a casual customer picks his book off a store shelf for purchase, he said.

‘‘Really, this book is my child, something I’ve been raising ever since high school,” said Bowling, now attending Loyola College in Baltimore. ‘‘To see it finally out of my hands is a little disconcerting, but it’s also very, very cool.”

Robin Rue, Bowling’s literary agent, said she does not normally work with authors as young as Bowling. To have someone so young produce a full novel is extraordinary, she said.

The planning of a book — maintaining its pace and rhythm, the amount of detail in storytelling — requires maturity, Rue said.

‘‘Drew is unusual in that,” she said.

‘‘He’s an enormously gifted writer. He really put together a wonderful story that’s filled with adventure,” Rue added.

It was over winter break during his freshmen year in college that Bowling sent about 100 pages of his story to Random House. A few weeks later, he was sitting at the computer in his dorm room when the phone rang with a call from the major publishing company.

‘‘I started screaming,” he said. ‘‘My roommates came in the door and eyed me warily, thinking I was probably insane.

‘‘My heart was certainly pounding. My head was pounding. My whole body was pounding,” he added.

The publisher was not only interested in Bowling’s work, but asked if he’d be interested in writing two sequels — which he had not even considered up to that point.

‘‘I didn’t hesitate very long before I said yes,” he said.

Genesis of a creative mind

‘‘I’ve been writing for as long as I’ve been reading. And I’ve been reading since my mom handed me a copy of ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar,’” Bowling said.

His most important teachers were the books he read while growing up and his parents, Bowling said. His father, Timothy Pyke Bowling, has a doctorate in 19th century British literature, and his mother, Carol Foster Bowling, is an English teacher currently working at St. Mary’s School in Rockville.

‘‘I think they recognized that I had a talent with writing early on, and they were very careful to nurture that,” he said.

The budding novelist was sometimes a distracted student, envisioning fantasy tales when he was supposed to be concentrating on math and science.

‘‘My academic career was a little shaky. I certainly did not get straight A’s,” Bowling said.

He did well in subjects he was interested in, like Advanced Placement English, while allowing his mind to wander to enchanted worlds during other classes.

Bowling wrote the first chapter of his book during a senior year math exam.

‘‘I finished the exam early, which in this case was not a good thing. Believe me, I didn’t finish it early because I was doing well,” he said.

But those academic distractions paid off.

The story grew during the two-year period between Bowling’s final year at Col. Zadok Magruder High School, from which he graduated in 2004, through his freshmen year of college in 2005, which is when he signed the writing contract.

‘‘I did not sit down at 6 o’clock after school, after finishing my homework — which I never really finished anyway — and just plot out this book,” he said. ‘‘It was much more complex than that.

‘‘I would get ideas and I’d put them into the mosaic, and the picture would slowly evolve,” he added,

Inspiration sometimes came at inopportune times, either in the middle of the night or on the road, forcing him to juggle a steering wheel, pen and paper as he jotted down ideas.

Bowling thought if he ever got a book published, it would have come much later in life, maybe when he was closer to 40, he estimated. The book deal came so early in college that he had not yet begun to seriously consider other professional pursuits.

He made the switch from a full-time student and part-time writer to the reverse. And he is all smiles.

‘‘I’m gonna continue to do this now, hopefully, as a full-time career,” he said.