“Maybe
other writers have perfect first drafts, but I am not one of them. I always try
to get the book as tight as I can, but you reach a point as the author where
you have lost all perspective.” – Sarah Dessen
Born in Evanston, Illinois on this
date in 1970, YA novelist Dessen said she got interested in writing early in
life and can’t remember a time when she wasn’t writing. After moving to Chapel Hill, NC as a child
(her parents were college professors), she studied creative writing at the
University of North Carolina and then dived right in – to a job as a waitress
at a burrito restaurant, waiting tables at night and writing by day. Her first novel, That Summer, hit the market in 1996 and by 1997 she was writing
full time. Both That Summer and her second novel Someone Like You were honored by
the American Library Association in their “Best Fiction for Young Adults”
category – the first two of seven of her books to achieve that honor. Those
two novels also inspired the popular movie “How To Deal,” starring Mandy Moore
and Allison Janney.
All 14 of her books (to date) have
been best sellers, and led to Dessen’s being selected for the ALA’s Margaret A. Edwards Award “ . . .for significant and lasting contribution
to young adult literature.”
Dessen gives the same advice that
many other best-selling writers do:
First be a good reader. “I was
always a big reader, mostly because my parents were,” Dessen said. “I really just love to read, period, whether
it be books or magazines or the back of the cereal box. It's the one thing I
can always count on to calm me down, take me away and inspire me, all at once.”
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