Gayle Forman | |
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Forman at the 2016 Texas Book Festival
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Born |
Los Angeles, CA |
June 5, 1970
Occupation | author |
Genre | Children's books, Young adult, novels |
Notable works |
If I Stay, Where She Went (sequel to If I Stay) Just One Day, Just One Year (sequel to Just One Day) |
Website | |
www |
Gayle Forman (born June 5, 1970) is an American young adult fiction author, best known for her novel If I Stay which topped the New York Times best sellers list of Young Adult Fiction and was made into a film of the same name.
Forman began her career writing for Seventeen Magazine, with most of her articles focusing on young people and social concerns. Later she became a freelance journalist for publications like Details Magazine, Jane Magazine, Glamour Magazine, The Nation, Elle Magazine, and Cosmopolitan Magazine. In 2002, she and her husband Nick took a trip around the world and she garnered experiences and information which later served as the basis for her first book, a travelogue, You Can't Get There From Here: A Year On The Fringes Of A Shrinking World. In 2007, she published her first young adult novel Sisters in Sanity which she based on an article she had written for Seventeen.
In 2009, Forman released If I Stay, a book about a 17-year-old girl named Mia who has been involved in a tragic car accident. The novel follows Mia's experience as she lies in a coma fully aware of what is going on around her and everything her visitors say and do. Feeling the agony of the loss of those closest to her, yet aware of the abounding love of those that remain, she must make the choice to hang on or let go. Forman won the 2009 NAIBA Book of the Year Awards and was a 2010 Indie Choice Honor Award winner for If I Stay. The film adaptation of If I Stay, starring Chloë Grace Moretz, was released in the United States on August 22, 2014. The sequel to If I Stay, titled Where She Went, was released in 2011. Told from Adam's point of view, the novel is about Adam and Mia's relationship after the accident.
In January 2013, Forman released Just One Day. The novel follows Allyson Healey, who, on the last day of a post-graduation European tour, meets a Dutch vagabond actor named Willem. In an uncharacteristic, spur-of-the moment decision, Allyson goes to Paris with Willem, where they spend a day together before he disappears. The sequel to Just One Day, titled Just One Year, was released in October 2013. The novel follows the same chronological path as Allyson's story, but told from the perspective of Willem. The final installment of Allyson and Willem's story, titled Just One Night, is a 50-page novella that was released in ebook format on May 29, 2014.