Splashing Into The Writing Pool

“My joke is that my father was a minister and my mother was an English teacher, so I'm trained to see the world in terms of symbols, which is hard when you just want to make toast.” – Libba Bray

Born Martha Elizabeth Bray in Alabama on this date in 1964, “Libba” grew up in Texas and now makes her home in New York City where she went to work as a book publicist and advertising specialist after college.  After working on behalf of other people’s books for a number of years she dived into the writing pool herself and became a best-selling author right from the start.

               Her first novel, 2003’s A Great and Terrible Beauty – the first in the Gemma Doyle Trilogy – not only was a New York Times bestseller but also a Book Standard's Teen Book Video Awards winner.   Bray also won the prestigious Michael L. Printz Award, recognizing literary excellence in Young Adult literature,  for her 2009 book Going Bovine. 

Bray’s most recent books for young readers are the Diviners series – three books and counting and all best sellers.

“I was a big reader as a kid,” she said.  “It was Charlotte's Web that showed me you could feel as if you were actually living inside a book.”

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