Ernest Cline

Ernest Cline grew up on a farm in Ohio that he claims resembled the Star Wars planet Tatooine. As a child, he was obsessed with Star Wars and other science fiction books and movies. As he grew older, he also developed an obsession with 1980s pop culture. In his early 20s he participated in poetry slams and wrote several film scripts. One script, Fanboys, was turned into a 2009 film, but Cline was disappointed with the results. He regretted that his original script had been changed so much and hoped to write a film based on his own novel in order to have more control over the final product. The result was Ready Player One, Cline’s debut novel, which sold at auction in 2010. The book became a bestseller upon its publication and was turned into a 2018 movie directed by Steven Spielberg, with a script written by Cline. Cline published a second science fiction novel, Armada, in 2015, and is working on a sequel to Ready Player One. He lives in Austin with his wife, fellow writer and slam poet Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz.