Sara Zarr

With her 2017 novel, Gem & Dixie (loosely based on some of her early life experiences), Zarr moved to the HarperCollins imprint Balzer + Bray, and has another book slated with them for 2018.

Story of a Girl was adapted into a television movie that will air on Lifetime starting in July 2017. It marks Kyra Sedgwick's directorial debut and features Sedgewick's husband, Kevin Bacon.

From 2013-2015, Zarr taught at Lesley University’s Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program.

From 2012-2015, Zarr hosted and produced the podcast This Creative Life. It featured Zarr in conversation with other writers.

In 2010, she served as a judge for the National Book Awards.

In 2008, Zarr contributed to the young adult for Obama project started by fellow YA author Maureen Johnson. Zarr's articles included "Red State Jesus Freaks for Obama" and "Personal Sacrifice."

Born in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in San Francisco, she earned a degree in communications from San Francisco State University. Zarr grew up as part of a Jesus Movement church and still identifies as a Christian. Her first three manuscripts were never published, but after winning the Utah Arts Council prize for best unpublished young adult novel of 2003, she was able to find an agent who successfully sold Story of a Girl as the first of a two-book deal, to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

Zarr has spoken and written openly about growing up in an alcoholic family system and its influences on her writing. She was married in 1990; she and her husband have no children.

Sara Zarr (born October 3, 1970) is an American writer. She was raised in San Francisco, and now lives in Salt Lake City, Utah with her husband. Her first novel, Story of a Girl, was a 2007 National Book Award finalist. She has subsequently had six novels published.