Laurie Halse Anderson

Anderson was born October 23, 1961, in the northern New York town of Potsdam. When she was a little girl she loved to play with her type writer. Anderson decided in second grade that she wanted to be a writer because of her second grade teacher. The reason why was because her teacher taught her haiku and thought it was easy.  One of her inspirations was her father because he wrote poetry.
For years, Anderson was in love with writing. She then figured out that she would actually get paid for writing, so then decided to become a freelance reporter. In 1996, her first book, Ndito Runs, was published. Anderson wrote many books for children. She had also spent most of her time on rewriting Fever 1793 and then took a break to write a novel named Speak.In 1999, Farrar, Straus and Giroux published one of Anderson’s most famous books, Speak.  Taking a break from Fever was actually a great idea. This book won lots of awards and was a The New York Times best seller. Speak has been translated in 16 languages. Also, Speak was made into a film in 2004.
After Anderson was finished with Speak, she had finally finished writing Fever 1793. Fever 1793 was published in the year 2000. She also started the Wild at Heart series, the twelfth book of which was published in March 2003. Later on, Anderson and her husband had a divorce, but still remain as good friends. Now Laurie is moving back home to live with her new husband and is still looking forward to keep on writing books.