[1] He credits his mother with teaching him to draw in the first grade, which led to his love of reading, starting with Marvel Comics and moving on to Classics Illustrated.
He worked for several years as a clown with both Ringling and Circus Vargas before moving to Maryland, where he was hired by his future wife, Donna Harris, in 1975 to join the Prince George's Country Puppet Theatre.
He procrastinated until two weeks before he was due to meet with the first publisher in New York, when he came up with the idea for what would become his first children's book in 1989, The Warrior and the Wise Man.
[1] After Golem, Wisniewski turned to lighter fare: "I didn't really have another historical epic left in me for a while, because it's such a Sturm-und-Drang kind of story".
[6] In his acceptance speech, he said of himself: "I am a self-taught artist and writer who depends on instincts developed through years of circus and puppet performance to guide a story's structure and look."