2009 Readers' Festival PJ Haarsma  PJ will be speaking from 2:30-3:30 pm in the Palo Verde Room

PJ Haarsma was born and raised outside Toronto, Canada, and moved to the United States in 1989, splitting his time between New York City and Miami as a fashion and commercial photographer. During this time, he garnered hundreds of photography awards, including an honorable mention at the Cannes Lion Awards. After producing an independent film in 2000, PJ tried his hand at "advertainment" but soon realized that his heart wasn’t in it. He began writing and hasn’t stopped since.

Growing up, PJ was a horror fan, often buying horror magazines with short stories and hiding them because he "was afraid the monsters would get out." Time travel was another genre he enjoyed: "I don’t know why: I think I just liked dreaming about what could be. I didn’t particularly enjoy my childhood, and I always remember wanting to be grown up or somewhere else."

The Softwire series is actually a story that Haarsma began imagining in his childhood.  Haarsma chose to give The Softwire a sci-fi setting due to a love of science fiction and to target a young adult audience with his novels so that children could discover and learn to enjoy the genre.

Now, in his free time, PJ loves working creatively with computers; he owns seven of them and works on at least four every day. PJ is also a self-proclaimed "science nut," making sure to read New Scientist magazine before anything else.  In 2007, along with  actor Nathan Fillion,  Haarsma founded the non-profit “Kids Need To Read” project that works to purchase books for underfunded schools.