Like Emma Saylor, Dessen has a daily practice of reading the obituaries. Like the locale in her book, these changes have “sparked cultures and classes colliding,” Dessen said.ĭessen sees a connection between a place and its people. The North Lake community also was inspired by a recent trip to White Lake, which Dessen declares is an “undiscovered treasure of North Carolina.” The “topography of the people“ in White Lake is being changed by gentrification. She realized how these small things added up to “become a big part of me.” “I was thinking about driving to the beach in the summer, the cotton fields in the fall, and these little Eastern North Carolina towns,” she said. North Lake has a strong sense of place - the element that launched the book.ĭessen was traveling to Europe for the first time since she was 12 and realized she was homesick for “these little North Carolina things that I didn’t expect to make me homesick.” At 17, there’s a sudden twist in Emma’s life, and she is stuck in a situation where she has no place to go.Įmma Saylor’s father decides to take her to North Lake, her mother’s childhood home. But they had been estranged long before that. In the novel, Emma Saylor’s mother was a drug addict who died when Emma was 12. This is more Saylor’s story than her mom’s.” There can be echoes of your parents, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be their story. “But the rest of the story is your story. “When you’re a teen or even a young adult, your story is hinged on your parents’ story and how they shape and are a part of your story,” Dessen said. While many of her previous titles dealt with mother-daughter relationships, “The Rest of the Story” focuses only on the daughter. “At the age I am now, I’m ready to tackle some stuff that maybe I wasn’t ready to tackle before,” she said. In “The Rest of the Story,” the heroine, Emma Saylor, is in a new setting and facing new territory. Her newest book is “The Rest of the Story,” which will be published June 4, 2019. Having a new editor is like working with a new trainer, Dessen said, adding that she “put me through my paces and kind of kicked my butt a little bit so I feel like I’m in better writing shape.”Ĭhapel Hill author Sarah Dessen has published 14 novels for young adults. It was hard for me to see myself as the writer I was when I started and the writer I am now.” Now I’m 48-year-old mom with 14 books under my belt and an 11 year-old-child. When I started with Penguin, I was a 26-year-old waitress at the Flying Burrito restaurant. “Sometimes you just need to get away from the place you’ve come from. “It’s hard to be a grown-up when your parents are around all the time,” Dessen said. Along with the move to a new publishing house came a new editor, a situation she compares to living in the same hometown as your parents, though not in the same house.
She announced on her blog in November that she would switch to Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, after 20 years with Viking, an imprint of Penguin Books for Young Readers. The award recognizes an author’s contributions to young adult literature, according to the Young Adult Library Services Association.Īs Dessen has recently encountered major changes, so has her writing. Edwards Award, an honor she received in 2017. Among them is the prestigious Margaret A. Over 23 years, Chapel Hill author Sarah Dessen has published 14 novels for young adults.Īs her books have become best-sellers, she has become a teen icon in the literary world, as well as online, where her 265,000-plus Twitter followers read her musings on writing, politics and pop culture (especially “Gilmore Girls”).ĭessen, who will turn 49 next month, has racked up plenty of awards, too. (published in the News and Observer, June 2, 2019
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