– Photo via New York

Former UWriting teacher Reif Larsen has escaped the Core’s clutches and gone on to greater things, as publishers absolutely lost their minds over his debut The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, which is about a 12 year old boy who obsessively draws everything he sees.

Larsen’s book is a collage of drawings, text, sidebars, and tidbits, all woven together on the page.  It is Larsen’s first book, and, as Larsen told New York, it’s a culmination of years being nurtured by his artistic parents and by teachers at “one of those progressive schools where they don’t correct your spelling.”

Though the image of a 5th grade future UWriting teacher confidently spelling yellow with three l’s is entertaining, perhaps just as important for Larsen is that he won’t be living the impoverished life of most of the talented teachers, writers, and artists out there. New York also reports that the publisher, Penguin Books, has paid a “near-million-dollar advance” for the debut. Looks like the rest of us took all those spelling tests for nothing.