SOURCE: "Women in Distress: The Plays of Paul Zindel," in Presenting Paul Zindel, Twayne Publishers, 1988, pp. 41-9.

In the following excerpt, Forman comments on the auto-biographical elements and depiction of women in Zindel's plays, often comparing the characterizations in his dramas to those in his young adult novels.

Just after Zindel was released from the tuberculosis sanatorium where he had spent eighteen months recuperating from the disease, the seventeen-year-old high school senior submitted a play to a contest sponsored by the American Cancer Society. He won a silver ballpoint pen as a prize, and ever since, he has been interested in creating drama. Many Americans, in fact, know him not as the author of young adult novels but as the Pulitzer Prize—winning playwright of The Effect Of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. Zindel himself believes that his major literary talent and interests lie in writing for the...