Getting to Know the Authors: Featuring Lauren Oliver!

                                  Bio

  She was born in Queens and raised in Westchester, New York, in a small town very similar to the one depicted in Before I Fall. Her parents are both literature professors, and from a very early age, her sister and her were encouraged to make up stories, draw, paint, dance around in costumes, and essentially spend much of their time living imaginatively. Her house was old and full of art and towers and towers of books, and that’s still the kind of house she likes best.

   She started writing as a way of extending my love of reading; when she read a book I loved, she would continue to write sequels for it (she was inadvertently a fan fic writer, before “fan fiction” was even a term!). Later on, she began working on her own stories, and keeping company with a lot of imaginary friends.

   She pursued literature and philosophy at the University of Chicago, and then moved back to New York to attend NYU’s MFA program in creative writing. She simultaneously began working at Penguin Books, in a young adult division called Razorbill, and while there, she started work on Before I Fall. She left in 2009 to pursue writing full-time, and now she happily work in her pajamas every day.

 What has she written?

Vanishing Girls, Panic Origin Story, Rooms, The Spindlers, Liesl & Po, Before I Fall, Panic, Requiem (Delirium, #3), Pandemonium (Delirium, #2), Delirium (Delirium, #1)

Now on to the Interview!!

1)How old were you when you started writing, in your opinion?

I've been writing pretty much every day since I was nine!

 2)What do you want a reader to gain from reading your works?

I hope that they're entertained, and that they find something meaningful to them, whatever that may be.

 3)What are your three top suggestions on becoming an author, or being a pleasure writer?

Read a lot, write a lot. I know that's only two, but it's the only advice that I have!

 4)What are your favorite pass times besides writing?

I love cooking, and reading, and dancing!

 5)Who in your life do you credit your imagination to the most?

I grew up in a very literary household.

 6)What are the top five things on your bucket list?

Go to Greece; Get a baby pig; Write a mystery; Buy my mom a car; Keep evolving my bucket list!

 7)What is your funniest childhood memory?

 I was so small growing up I used to fall in the toilet when I tried to use it and have to get fished out. Not sure whether it was funny at the time, but it certainly is now.

 8)To the youth of today, if you could tell them one thing, what would it be?

You are so valuable, and the most valuable thing you have is your voice and your point of view and your difference. Don't try to be like anybody else. You are the only person who can be you, and you are therefore the rarest commodity on the planet!!