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Highland » Brandon Mull was a daydreamer -- the kind who either intrigued his teachers or irritated them.
One second-grade teacher seated Brandon in a corner behind a file cabinet to read, hoping to cure his wandering mind. Another saw promise in the boy's creativity and stitched together a class play with him as the star.
Today, that daydreamer has become one of Utah's most popular fantasy writers, hitting the New York Times book list and selling more than 400,000 copies of his children's Fablehaven sensation. His latest chronicle -- Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary -- is scheduled for release next week.
It's a dream, Mull confessed, "that I knew could totally not come true."
His home office in northern Utah County is cluttered with colorful knickknacks -- a wooden puppet, a stone-covered golem carrying a pumpkin and a cherub-faced pixie with the placard "Don't Piss Off the Fairies" -- that hint at the stunning success of a Utah author and father of three who now travels the country, sparking young minds with the tale of two children trying to protect a secret preserve of magical creatures known as Fablehaven.
Reared in the suburbs of Los Angeles, as a boy Mull developed an unstoppable imagination. His mother, Pamela, remembers him spending hours in his room -- sometimes without toys -- hopping from bed to floor to chair as part of an elaborate story playing out in his head. She dubbed it "Brandon's game."
His penchant for pretending didn't diminish as he grew older. He once wriggled past a loose board into a mothballed 7-Up factory to lead his friends on an expedition. He later penned poems, short stories and sometimes grisly comic strips.
But Mull's first foray into full-length novel writing didn't come until after high school, when he plunked out a short book between his freshman year at Brigham Young University and his mission to northern Chile for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
A more serious attempt came years later -- after Mull had finished a public-relations degree that he hoped he would never need. "Writing was my guilty secret," he said.
Mull plodded through his classes, honing his literary skills as head wordsmith for the sketch-comedy troupe Divine Comedy. At its height, the club sold out 3,000 seats in a weekend.
But his plunge into the writing world came after graduation when Mull and his wife, Mary, decided that he should pursue fiction full time. "Go for it," Mary told him. With a chuckle, Mary added, "Maybe I shouldn't have thought that, but I lucked out."
Well, not with the first novel. It fell flat and went unpublished.
With the sting of disappointment still fresh, Mull found a full-time marketing job at Excel Entertainment (maker of the film "Saints and Soldiers") just before the couple had their first baby. Turns out, that day job was heaven sent.
A merger of Excel and Deseret Book led Mull to a copy-writing gig with the latter. There, he formed connections that enabled him to successfully pitch Fablehaven to the publishing company's mass-circulation arm, Shadow Mountain.
The book, published in 2006, was a hit, snatching some of the same market that had made J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series an international phenomenon. And so Mull wrote a second and then a third and now a fourth.
Christopher Paolini, author of the best-selling Eragon , devoured the first three in a single sitting, clocking his final page turn at 4:40 a.m.
"The world he has created is deep, intriguing, magical and full of surprising discoveries and unexpected dangers," Paolini wrote in an e-mail. "I only wish I could have read it when I was 10 or 12."
Mull has since quit his day job. He now travels five months a year pumping literacy and his books -- a touring regimen that has led him to more than 550 schools in 30 states.
During the rest of the year, he writes. He spends eight hours a day (and sometimes more) in a basement office decorated with bits of fantasy. The bust of a multiheaded hydra lurks besides his computer, tribal masks hang on the wall, and a centaur figurine guards his shelf.
But he also has a black-and-white photo of his grandfather, "Cyclone" Davis, standing outside the cockpit of World War II-era fighter plane. Mull smiled as he pulled the picture from the shelf and remarked that Fablehaven heroes Kendra and Seth owe their "cool grandparents," in part, to this granddad who fought at Pearl Harbor and flew one of the last bombing raids of the war on Japan.
So what does Mull think of this daydream job now that he's penned four Fablehaven books and is planning for a fifth and final installment?
"I was hoping that it would feel fun forever," he said. "And it just gets more fun. I really, sincerely, deeply geek out and love it."
Soon, Mull's imaginative characters will fill the big screen. The author has signed movie deals for Fablehaven and his hot-selling Candy Shop War books.
Mull remains hush-hush about future novels. But he hints that he may resurrect and retool his first book about a boy who crosses over into another world. And, this time, he won't have to just dream about it hitting the shelves.
jstettler@sltrib.com" Target="_BLANK">jstettler@sltrib.com
Age » 34.
Hometown » Highland.
Family » Wife, Mary, and three children younger than 5.
Education » Bachelor's degree in public relations and English from Brigham Young University.
Occupation » Best-selling book writer.
Favorite book » Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.
Latest recognition » Cover of this month's Utah Valley Magazine as one of the valley's most "fabulous folk."
Fun fact » He once earned a gold medal in a community pudding-eating contest.
Brandon Mull will celebrate the release of Fablehaven: Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary with a book-launch party March 24 at Cottonwood High, 5715 S. 1300 East, Murray. The event -- expected to attract about 3,000 people -- will include a comedy routine, live music, a theatrical performance by the University of Utah ballet, a pumpkin-tossing tournament and plenty of books for purchase and signings. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. Festivities begin an hour later.