This Young Writer Publishes His Own Honest Stories

By Robert Makin

The Courier News

March 31, 2000

*** I'm too lazy to type the whole thing, I put in the most important parts.***

Most high-school seniors would spend $3,000 in summer wages on a car or college.

Randall J. Lotowycz, an 18 year-old from Warren, used his savings to publish "In The Meanwhile," a collection of his short stories and scripts.

"Even if I only manage to sell a few copies, I will not be discouraged," says Lotowycz, a senior at Watchung Hills Regional High School in Warren. "I have already accomplished my dream. It took my time and focus to make my book just right. It represents five years of dedication to something that I hold very dear to my heart."

By the time Lotowycz finishes his first semester at the University of Delaware in Newark, Del., he and his illustrator, Watchung Hills schoolmate Sean Mullican, will have completed a second anthology.

Lotowycz is hoping that Ohio-based GEM literary Agency will find a Hollywood studio to produce his first feature-length script, "The Simpler."

"That's about a year in the life of this character, Ben, who's not ready to handle the emotions that come with adulthood," says Lotowycz. "He wants to change, but he's too afraid to change. It deals with his interaction with people as he tries to turn himself around."

Lotowycz was inspired to have his scripts and stories published after receiving positive feedback about his writing from fellow teens around the world on his website: www.angelfire.com/nj2/Randall

When publishers and agents told him "you're too young to be a writer,' he launched 3rd Option Publishing with summer money he earned installing kitchens with his father, Leo Lotowycz.