Page Created: 10/05/16. Last Updated: 04/05/17.
JASON FRY
Middle Grade Novels:
..........The Jupiter Pirates # 1: Hunt for the Hydra
..........The Jupiter Pirates # 2: Curse of the Iris
..........The Jupiter Pirates # 3: The Rise of Earth
..........The Jupiter Pirates: Tales from the Log
Star Wars (Solo Books)
..........Star Wars in 100 Scenes
..........Star Wars: The Complete Saga
..........Star Wars: The Phantom Menace: The Expanded Visual Dictionary
.
..........Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Episode Guide
..........Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Incredible Victories
..........Star Wars: The Clone Wars: New Battlefields: The Visual Guide
..........Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Ultimate Battles
..........Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Visual Guide
..........Star Wars: The Secret Life of Droids
..........The Clone Wars Flip Book Heroes and Villains
..........The Official Episode Guide: Season 1 (Star Wars: The Clone Wars)
..........Star Wars Rebels Servants of the Empire: The Secret Academy
..........Star Wars Rebels Servants of the Empire: Imperial Justice
..........Star Wars Rebels Servants of the Empire: Rebel in the Ranks
Star Wars / Transformers
..........Various Collaborators, Over a dozen books
Sites:
..........Official Author Site: https://jasonfry.wordpress.com/
..........Jupiter Pirates Site: http://www.jupiterpirates.com/
..........Faith and Fear in Flushing (New York Mets with Greg Prince): http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/
Social Media:
..........Tumblr: http://jasonfry.tumblr.com/
MEETING SUMMARY
Meeting Date: February 11, 2017.
Meeting Site: Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
Official Attendance: 25.
Meeting Program: Talk by Star Wars / Middle Grade Writer.
NEWSLETTER ACCOUNT
The following account is reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP EXPRESS Copyright 2017 Philip J De Parto:
STAR WARS and Middle Grade Science Fiction writer Jason Fry spoke at the February 11, 2017 General Meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County. The event was held at the Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.
The meeting was in many ways a showcase for how one of our meetings should work. The Ice Nine discussion was wide-ranging, including talk about movies, comics, television and even emergency preparedness. The Writers' Space Salon was well-attended and covered dialogue, dialect and a number of other subjects.
Jason Fry knew he wanted to be a writer from his early childhood. His first story, written (actually, dictated to his mother) when he was three, was "Puppies Will Eat Anything" and starred Buckshot the Dalmatian whose ever-growing appetite eventually results in him eating the world. Jason filled piles of lined blue exam books with his yarns, selling one to a newspaper for $ 100.00 while in middle school.
Our speaker's interest in writing led him to a career in journalism. After getting his degree in American Studies from Yale in 1991, Mr Fry interned at a newspaper in New Orleans for a year. That led to a position editing the INDOOR AIR REVIEW trade journal. He became the boyfriend of a woman who wrote for The New York Times and moved to New York to be with her. Not long afterwards he signed on with The Wall Street Journal for 13 years.
When he was not writing for the Journal, Jason pursued his two passions: STAR WARS and the New York Mets. He and a friend wrote one another multi-page emails analyzing each Mets game. They decided to create the Fear and Faith in Flushing Mets blog which is still going strong. It also led our guest to complete his first novel as an adult, KING OF BEERS, an unsold novel about baseball.
Mr Fry may have been a rabid Mets fan, but when it came to STAR WARS, he was a complete psychotic. The franchise had been relaunched with a series of books by Timothy Zahn in 1991 and plans were underway for a new series of movies. Our speaker became friends with Don Wallace, who was in the process of writing STAR WARS: THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO PLANETS AND MOONS for Del Rey Books. Jason had already been compiling his own set of notes to the SW universe.
It was around this time our guest made another important contact. One of his neighbors was involved with the STAR WARS game licensed to West End Games. The two of them were soon involved in the STAR WARS ADVENTURE JOURNAL, a West End Games periodical This led to writing a book column for STAR WARS INSIDER published by Lucas Films where he got to talk to people like Terry Brooks and R A Salvatore. When Wizards of the Coast took over the game, Jason was asked to contribute articles about races and planets in the SW universe. One of his creations, the planet Anaxies, was mentioned in THE CLONE WARS.
The STAR WARS editorial brass grew comfortable with Mr Fry. He was knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the product, he made his deadlines, and he could be trusted to keep his mouth shut about inside information about the movie and television tie-ins which were under development. It was time to assign him something larger.
STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS: THE VISUAL GUIDE was Jason Fry's breakout work and made him a New York Times best-selling author, albeit in a very narrow category. This led to two more Clone Wars reference books which paved the way for his magnum opus, THE STAR WARS ESSENTIAL ATLAS.
As satisfying as the non-fiction tie-ins were (Jason had also worked on some TRANSFORMERS books), our speaker was also interested in fiction writing. He got the idea for The Jupiter Pirates series while walking in Manhattan with his wife. The books sold poorly and the series was canceled after three books, but they were extremely important for his career development. They established that he could write Middle Grade fiction and make his deadlines. This resulted in our guest having the opportunity to write a number of Middle Grade STAR WARS novels. Mr Fry currently has a full plate of STAR WARS fiction and non-fiction pieces underway.
There were lots of fun asides. Jason received a text from his friend, Pablo, who works on the movie side of Lucas Films telling him that in the new movie, Hans says to Chewbacca: "We should have checked out the Western Reaches." Our speaker created the Western Reaches in one of his SW non-fiction pieces.
There are 5200 recorded planets, moons and asteroids in the STAR WARS universe. This encompasses half the SW galaxy, which leaves plenty of unexplored space for future adventures. When it came time to work on the ESSENTIAL ATLAS, he needed someone to create the actual maps. The best person for the job was an online acquaintance named Modi. Jason offered him the job. Modi replied: "Do you know that I'm 16 years old and live in the Czech Republic? I might not be able to work on something for a couple of days if I'm studying for an Algebra Final." Our guest ran it past his editors. "Are you okay with this?" "Is he the best guy for the job?" "Yes!" "Then we're okay with it."
There was also considerable discussion of the STAR WARS Expanded Universe, which is the underlying architecture to the saga, what is canon, what is non-canon, and how that has changed over the years. I am really not much of a STAR WARS buff beyond the first two movies, but Jason Fry was simply marvelous.