Sarah Dessen was born on June 6th, 1970 in Evanston, Illinois USA. Sarah was born to her Alan C. Dessen, and her mother who was a professor at the University of North Carolina. Sarah attended Greensboro College in Greensboro, North Carolina but soon dropped out to take classes at North Chapel Hill. She graduated with the highest honors in Creative Writing, which shows greatly in all of her many publications as well as her beloved blog. Sarah published her first book "That Summer" in 1996 while she was working her first waitress job at Flying Burrito in Chapel Hill. Soon after, an author was born. Sarah's writing genre started as realistic fiction. Her next publication was called "Along for the Ride" which made the New York Times Bestseller List. Shortly after she published her book "Dreamland", she began to teach at the University of North Carolina. Sarah drew in inspiration from the students around her and soon published her next bestseller "This Lullaby". The same year "Keeping the Moon" came out, Sarah got married to her husband Jay Earl Marks on June 10th. She now lives with her husband and daughter, Sasha Clementine, in North Carolina. Sarah's books have won various awards like the barnesandnoble.com Best Teen Novel of the Year, South Carolina Young Adult Book Award in 2000-2001, International Reading Association Young Adult choice in 2001, and number 1 New York Times Bestseller. Her book "That Summer" was adapted into the motion picture How To Deal, which was released on July 2003. Sarah Dessen continues to post almost weekly updates on her blog she has on her website.