Jennifer Donnelly
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| Jennifer Donnelly | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 16, 1963 Port Chester, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Double major in English Literature and History |
| Alma mater | University of Rochester |
| Period | 2002-present |
| Genres | Historical fiction, young adult fiction |
| Notable work(s) | A Northern Light, The Wild Rose |
| Notable award(s) | ALA Odyssey Honor 2011 Revolution Michael L. Printz Honor 2003 A Northern Light Carnegie Medal 2003 A Northern Light |
Jennifer Donnelly (born August 16, 1963 in Port Chester, New York) is a historical fiction author best known for her novel A Northern Light (published in the UK as A Gathering Light). She has also written The Tea Rose, The Winter Rose, and Revolution, as well as Humble Pie, a picture book for children. Her most recent novel, The Wild Rose, was published in August 2011.
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[edit] Early life
Donnelly's grandparents emigrated from Dublin, Ireland to New York, settling in the Adirondack region, where her grandmother worked at a hotel on Big Moose Lake -- later the setting of Donnelly's opus, A Northern Light. Donnelly's own childhood was spent divided between the communities of Rye and Port Leyden, New York.[citation needed]
[edit] Education
Donnelly attended the University of Rochester, majoring in English Literature and European History and graduating cum laude with distinction in English Literature. She later attended Birkbeck College at the University of London in England.
[edit] Career
Donnelly moved back to New York, to Brooklyn, at the age of 25. After ten years of work, Donnelly published her first novel, The Tea Rose. The Tea Rose is the first book of a trilogy based in the 19th Century in London's East End, with ties to the story of Jack the Ripper. The second book, The Winter Rose, continues the tale, following the Finnegan family and related characters from London to Africa to the coast of Northern California. The third novel in the series, The Wild Rose, which follows Willa and Seamie's story, follows the characters from London on the verge of World War I to Arabia in 1918.
A Northern Light was her second published novel, and biggest success to date. The young adult novel is based around the infamous murder of Grace Brown by Chester Gillette in the Adirondack Mountains in 1906. This case was earlier the basis for Theodore Dreiser's epic An American Tragedy as well as the film A Place in the Sun.
In 2004, A Northern Light won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Carnegie Medal in the UK (where the novel was published as A Gathering Light.), as well as the 2004 Michael L. Printz Award as an honor book.
Her second young adult novel, Revolution, is a tale of two teenage girls—one in present-day Brooklyn and one in Paris during the French Revolution—whose stories interweave as they struggle to make sense of the tragedies they encounter. The book was published in October, 2010 by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House, with a first run of 250,000 copies.[1] It was named a Best Book of 2010 by Amazon.com, Kirkus Reviews and School Library Journal, and the audiobook version of Revolution received a 2011 American Library Association Odyssey Honor.
[edit] Personal
Donnelly currently lives in New York's Hudson Valley with her husband, daughter, and one rescued greyhound.
