'Actually living in a book'

 

“Write like it matters, and it will.” – 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 studying at the University of Texas.  After working on behalf of other people’s books for several 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 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 book Going Bovine.  She has now authored 10 novels – including 2025’s Under the Stars – and numerous short stories.

 

“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.”