Rebecca Wells

For the actress Mary or Becky Wells, see Becky Wells.

Rebecca Wells
Born	Louisiana
Occupation	Novelist, actor, theatre director
Language	English
Nationality	United States
Notable work(s)	Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood Little Altars Everywhere

Rebecca Wells is an American author and theatre director, who wrote the Ya-Ya Sisterhood series of books, which includes Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Little Altars Everywhere, and Ya-Yas in Bloom.

Background

Wells was born and raised in Alexandria, Louisiana. She attended high school in the 1960s and 1970s. After college, she moved to North Carolina to pursue her acting career and began studying Stanislavski's system of acting, and a depth approach that integrates spirituality and performance, with Maurine Holbert.^{[citation needed]}

"I live in an actor's body, in which the cultivation of sense memory, active listening, and the belief that the sublime can arise out of the most common character, word, or gesture is somewhat of a religion for me."^{[citation needed]}

She made Seattle, Washington her home, and currently lives on Bainbridge Island. There she began to perform and develop plays at numerous Seattle theaters.^{[citation needed]}

Writing career

Her current works are set in Louisiana. Although the protagonist of Divine Secrets is a play director, like her, Wells says, "My work is a result of my imagination dancing a kind of psycho-spiritual tango with my own history, and the final harvest is fiction, not memoir."^{[citation needed]}

Her first novel, sometimes referred to as a collection of short stories, was Little Altars Everywhere. This volume introduced the Walker family. It won the Western States Book Award and became a New York Times bestseller.^{[citation needed]}

Her second novel, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, continued and expanded the mythos surrounding the Walker clan. It also developed the other Ya-Yas, best friends of Vivi Walker. It became a number one New York Times bestseller and was made into a movie starring Sandra Bullock in 2002. It won the 1999 Adult Trade ABBY Award and Ya-Ya clubs came into existence worldwide.^{[citation needed]}

Her third novel, another Divine Secrets prequel Ya-Yas in Bloom with more information about the early lives of the Ya-Ya Sisters, also became a New York Times bestseller.^{[citation needed]}

The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder introduced a wholly new set of characters and Louisiana settings.

Novels

• Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (1996)
• Ya-Yas in Bloom (2005)
• The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder (2009)

Short stories

• Little Altars Everywhere (1992)

External links

• Official website
• Interview and audio clip Official publisher web page