Q: How and why did you start teaching at UNC? Would you return?Ī: I did a reading at the Bull’s Head when my first book, That Summer, was released. But it was very different than I expected. I always felt like I wouldn’t want to attend UNC because I felt like I’d been a student there all my life. As a student, I got to see an entirely different side, though. I still feel that way about it, actually. Carolina always just felt like my backyard, an extension of Chapel Hill. I skateboarded in the Pit while my dad taught at Greenlaw, hung out in the Murphey Hall lounge with my brother while my mom had meetings. Q: What was it like to have parents as professors at UNC?Ī: It was really just what I knew. I couldn’t tell my students they had to be disciplined and write every day and not do it myself. Once I was a writer, teaching really forced me to keep working. My teachers were so good, and so passionate, and they thought I had what it took long before I was able to believe it myself. Q: How did your education at Carolina and/or your teaching help you with your writing career?Ī: It wasn’t until I was a student in the Creative Writing Program that I actually believed I could be a writer. She was recently honored with a Distinguished Young Alumni Award from the General Alumni Association. Many of her books have won awards and appeared on major best-seller lists, including The New York Times. Her parents were professors in the College of Arts and Sciences: Alan Dessen in English and Cynthia Dessen in classics. The English major, who later returned to teach creative writing at UNC for eight years, talks with us about her latest book, writing process and experiences at Carolina. "He'll never know that he inspired the book and a character in it.Popular young adult novelist Sarah Dessen ’93 is awaiting the May release of her 10th novel, What Happened to Goodbye. This summer, a certain pool boy will be on the mind of thousands of girls. They live in rural North Carolina with chickens and two dogs, a Boston terrier named Coco and a boxer named Goose. She dedicates Moon to her daughter Sasha, 5, and her husband, Jay. Up next for Dessen? A book tour to promote The Moon and More, and she's already started writing her next novel. "I think at this point it would be very startling to my readers if there was a sex scene." "My books are so tame! I'm just not that kind of writer," Dessen laughs when asked if she's ever thought about pushing the limits with her readers.
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In 2003, two of her works were combined in a movie starring Mandy Moore, How to Deal. She has more than 223,000 followers on Twitter - ardent fans who turn up "crying, jumping, sweating and screaming" at events like a BookExpo signing and a YA author event at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square. She's had five books on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list, and Along for the Ride reached No. With young-adult literature dominated by vampires, dystopian scenarios and sexual awakenings, Dessen has found her niche. She knows everything, but at the same time, she doesn't know anything. "She knows how to do things, she's capable and responsible. "Emaline is very confident in her environment," Dessen says.
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Emaline (named after the Ben Folds song) must come to terms with being accepted to Columbia University and not being able to afford it, instead settling for a full ride at a local school. And there's More: Emaline's unexpected relationship with her estranged father and a host of quirky-but-relatable supporting characters.Īnother theme is one very real to hundreds of thousands of graduates today – debt. (a setting familiar to Dessen fans, inspired by Emerald Isle), whose summer between high school and college is shaken up by a new romance with an urban filmmaking intern (and an old romance with a hunky pool boy - sound familiar?). The novel stars Emaline, a working-class girl in fictional Colby, N.C.