Alice Sebold
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| Alice Sebold | |
| Born: | September 6, 1963 Madison, Wisconsin, Wisconsin |
|---|---|
| Occupation: | Writer |
| Nationality: | USA |
| Writing period: | early 21st century |
| Genres: | literary fiction, memoir |
Alice Sebold (b. 1963 in Madison, Wisconsin) is a bestselling American writer. She has currently published two books, Lucky and The Lovely Bones.
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[edit] Early life
Sebold grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia and graduated from Great Valley High School in Malvern, Pennsylvania in 1980. She then enrolled in Syracuse University.
When she was 18 years old and a freshman at Syracuse, she was attacked, beaten and brutally raped in a nearby park. Following the incident, Sebold went back to her dorm where a security guard called an ambulance. After some months at home Sebold returned to Syracuse to finish her bachelor’s degree and study writing. While walking down a street near the Syracuse campus, she recognized her rapist and managed to secure his arrest.
Following graduation from Syracuse, Sebold went to Texas for graduate school. Then she moved to Manhattan and lived there for 10 years. She held several jobs as a waitress and tried to pursue her writing career. [1] Sebold wanted to write her story through poetry, but that, and attempts at writing a novel, did not come to fruition. For some time Sebold tried to deal with her memories of the attack through drugs. She used heroin recreationally for two years, though claims she never became addicted, not having an addictive personality. [2] Sebold recounted her drug abuse to students at an Evening of Fiction workshop by saying that, "I did a lot of things that I am not particularly proud of and that I can’t believe that I did." [3]
Sebold left the city and moved to Southern California, where she became a caretaker of an arts colony, earning $386 a month and living in a cabin in the woods without electricity. She would write by propane candlelight. Later, Sebold applied to graduate school at University of California, Irvine in 1995.
[edit] Career
While at UCI Sebold began writing Lucky, a memoir of her rape while at Syracuse. She named the book from a police officer who told Sebold that she was lucky for not being killed because a girl was raped and killed in the same place she was attacked. The story began while writing a ten-page assignment for class, though Sebold eventually wrote 40 pages. The book arose from that assignment.
After publishing Lucky in 1999, Sebold continued her writing career. She published a bestselling novel The Lovely Bones in 2002. The book is a story of a 14-year-old girl who is raped and killed. She tells her story from heaven looking down as her family tries to cope with the death of their oldest daughter. While working on The Lovely Bones Sebold met her husband Glen David Gold at UCI in 1995. He arrived late for one of his classes and he could not remove his motor cycle helmet. Sebold began talking to Gold and they were married in November of 2001. [4]
In an interview conducted by Ann Darby of Publishers Weekly, Sebold said of The Lovely Bones: "I was motivated to write about violence because I believe it's not unusual. I see it as just a part of life, and I think we get in trouble when we separate people who've experienced it from those who haven't. Though it's a horrible experience, it's not as if violence hasn't affected many of us." [5]
Alice Sebold won the American Booksellers Association Book of the Year Award for Adult Fiction in 2003 [6] and the Bram Stoker Award for First Novel in 2002. She was also nominated in the Novel category in that year. [7]
Film director Peter Jackson is currently slated to make The Lovely Bones into a film. [8]
[edit] Books
- The Lovely Bones, novel (Little, Brown; 1st ed edition, June 1, 2002) ISBN 0-316-66634-3, (Back Bay Books, April 20, 2004) ISBN 0-316-16881-5
- Lucky, memoir (Back Bay Books, September 1, 2002) ISBN 0-316-66634-3, ISBN 0-316-09619-9
- The Secret Garden (Modern Library Classics) by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Alice Sebold (Introduction) (Modern Library November 11, 2003) ISBN 0-8129-6998-7
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Alice Sebold at the Internet Movie Database
- The Lovely Bones at the Internet Movie Database
- Meet the Writers at Barnes & Noble (includes detailed interview from the July/August 2002 issue of Book magazine)
- Collection of newspaper articles
- Interview at Powells.com
- Video clip showing the BBC interview
- THE LOVELY BONES Reading Group Guide
- LUCKY Reading Group Guide
