The real Nicholas Sparks !`` International best-selling author shares more than his passion for writing with crowd in Rogers.
Posted on Sunday, October 12, 2008
ROGERS - The main floor of the Embassy Suites was bustling early Saturday morning.
The parking lot outside the hotel was full and hordes of people were scrambling into the building, clinching books with titles like," Dear John, " "Message in a Bottle," and "A Walk to Remember. "Inside, lines were forming - and to suggest there was an excited buzz would be an understatement.
"There he is," shouted someone in the mostly female crowd of hundreds filtering into the banquet room. "It's Nicholas Sparks. It's really him."
Nicholas Sparks burst onto the literary scene in 1996 with his international best-selling "The Notebook," a love story of a couple that fell in love in the 1940 s and then again in the 1990 s when she was suffering from Alzheimer's. Sparks, who visited with high school classes in Rogers earlier in the week, served as the main attraction at a fundraising event organized by the Rogers Public Library at the Embassy on Saturday.
Since releasing "The Notebook," Sparks has spent considerable time atop the New York Times Best Seller's List, having crafted 14 highly-acclaimed novels over a span of just 12 years, the latest," The Lucky One," released just last week. Several of Sparks' novels - "The Notebook, " "A Walk to Remember," and "Message in a Bottle, " - have been turned into big screen box office smash hits, including "Nights in Rodanthe," playing in theaters now. And the film rights to his best-selling novel from 2006," Dear John," have been purchased and will begin production on Monday.
Needless to say, Sparks, one of the most prolific authors today, attracts a following, wherever he goes and wherever his novels appear on bookshelves. Saturday was no exception in Rogers.
"I was never big into reading before someone told me about Nicholas Sparks," said 24-year-old Springdale resident Heather Stewart, who was turned onto the author by a friend three years ago. "Now, I love Love of track and field may surprise reading. I don't know how to explain it. He's just so good."
So good, in fact, that residents of Oregon, Illinois and Georgia - to name a few - planned to visit friends in northwest Arkansas this weekend specifically so they could see Sparks in person and hear him speak. Judging by the chatter leading up to the event, the majority of those packed into the room could have told you every last detail of Sparks' novels. So when the author himself stepped to the microphone, he opened the door to the side of Nicholas Sparks many fans may not have known.
"One of the things I find most interesting is when people talk about their passions," Sparks said. "There's something about when you get a person talking about something they're passionate about - something other than what they do - that fascinates."
So that's exactly what Sparks did. He talked about his three passions - his family, his dogs and track and field.
He told stories about his wife and five children, noting that his youngest daughters, twins, often bust into his office in tears after falling down or bumping into something, while Sparks has been deeply entrenched in writing one of his many novels-turned-bestsellers. And he did so with a huge smile on his face.
That smile remained as he described his three dogs, particularly Rex, who he describes through the character Zeus, a German Shepherd in "The Lucky One. "he's taught Rex to fetch spoons, forks and knives from the kitchen and continues to train the dog new tricks for 20 minutes every day.
But the story that moved those in attendance Saturday - and that has been attracting the most attention to Sparks outside of his writing abilities - was his love of track and field. The assumption Sparks, who has pumped out more than one extremely-detailed, highly-acclaimed novel per year since receiving his break with "The Notebook," has no time for anything but writing, was quickly shot down. In fact, for several months of every year, Sparks can be found with a whistle in his mouth and a stopwatch in hand at New Bern High School, just a few miles from his home in eastern North Carolina.
"I love track and field," Sparks said. "People who know me know that's where I'll be."
Sparks, who graduated from the University of Notre Dame on a track and field scholarship and still holds a school record as part of a championship relay team, has certainly had an impact. For years, athletics were anything but the forte of New Berm High School. But over the past six years, the track program there has won five indoor and outdoor state championships.
A few years ago, Sparks himself reportedly donated $ 900, 000 for the construction of a new track facility for New Berm High School. Since he started coaching, Sparks and staff have seen more than 30 athletes to track and field college scholarships. The majority of them, he said, would not have otherwise been able to afford college.
While coaching the track team, Sparks and his wife started an "unconventional"school of their own for grades six through 12 in North Carolina, called Epiphany School. A Christian school, students do more than learn about rainforests, cultures, history and environmental issues. By the time each student graduates, he or she travels to at least 26 countries on six continents. They explore the rainforests of Costa Rica. They hike the Mayan ruins in Mexico. They cruise the Nile River and see the Egyptian Pyramids. They walk the Great Wall of China and more.
"My wife and I believe in making a difference," Sparks said. "We're really excited about this school. We're getting close to reaching our capacity of 300 students. When they leave here, they'll have spent 250 days abroad and have the coolest photo album ever."
It's a side of Sparks many listening at the Embassy on Saturday were not aware of. But it's a side that hardly takes a back seat to his writing.
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