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Sarah Dessen
As a child she wrote many stories about her dolls and a long series based around the Revolutionary War that her mother still has on file somewhere. Her mom always bought her books for her birthday and Christmas instead of clothes, which made her very angry.
Sarah Dessen was born in Evanston, Illinois but moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina when her parents both accepted a job at UNC. Her parents were both professors in the field of literature; therefore, Sarah had great support when she wanted to become a writer. Sarah’s family is not very big; she has one older brother who is a musician, a trombonist.
When Sarah was in high school she hung out with the wrong crowd. She did good and bad things in high school, and she thinks that has made the person and the writer she is today. For that reason, she wouldn’t change her experiences for anything. Many people wouldn’t think that Sarah was that type of a person when she was a kid, considering she is a writer.
She graduated in 1993 with a Bachelors of Arts in English with Highest Honors in Creative Writing, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has been working at the world famous Flying Burrito, a Mexican restaurant, for quite a long time. Being a waitress was a great job for a writer because of the numerous conversations she could eavesdrop on to get more ideas. There were tons of materials she heard in the restaurant she couldn’t hear anywhere else. Three years after graduating she sold her first book, That Summer. About a year after selling her book she was offered a teaching job at UNC, which marked an end of her waitressing job.
Sarah Dessen has published four books, all for young readers. She never intended on writing for a young adult audience but that’s where her heart was set. She does write short stories and novels for an older audience but in the end she is always brought back to writing about high school life. She thinks that happens because during high school so much happened and she isn’t done telling about it.
Besides writing she has another life, her non-writing life. She lives in the country with her husband, some lizards, and two dogs that she spoils and completely rules her. She likes to work in the garden but she still hasn’t mastered the art of keeping the plants alive. She also loves to shop and has an addiction to the Gap clearance rack. She has a strange urge to buy many black pants. How many pairs of black pants does a person need? Well for her, 11 and counting. She loves Starbuck mochas but they make her really hyper.
Sarah Dessen gets many fan letters from teenage girls usually telling her about how close they feel to the character in her book. Sometimes the fans would tell her how much the book reminded them of their own lives. “I don’t think they even realize how much the [next page]