Gary Paulsen has had a life as exciting as fiction!Gary Paulsen, three-time Newbery Honor author, is no stranger to adventure.

He has flown off the back of a dogsled and down a frozen waterfall to near disaster, and waited for a giant bear to seal his fate with one slap of a claw.

He has led a team of sled dogs toward the Alaskan Mountain Range in an Iditarod -- the grueling, 1,180-mile dogsled race -- hallucinating from lack of sleep, but he determined to finish.

Here, in vivid detail, Paulsen recounts several of the remarkable experiences that shaped his life and inspired his award-winning writing.