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Nicholas Sparks is one of the world's most beloved storytellers. All of his books have been New York Times bestsellers, with over 89 million copies in print worldwide, in over 50 languages, including over 50 million copies in the United States alone, and his popularity continues to soar.
Sparks wrote one of his best-known stories, The Notebook, over a period of six months at age 28. It was published in 1996 by Warner Books. He followed with the novels Message in a Bottle (1998), A Walk to Remember (1999), The Rescue (2000), A Bend in the Road (2001), Nights in Rodanthe (2002), The Guardian (2003), The Wedding (2003), True Believer (2005) and its sequel, At First Sight (2005), Dear John (2006), The Choice (2007), The Lucky One (2008), The Last Song (2009), Safe Haven (2010), The Best of Me (2011), and The Longest Ride (2013), as well as the 2004 non-fiction memoir Three Weeks With My Brother, co-written with his brother Micah.
Safe Haven, filmed in Southport, North Carolina was released on February 14, 2013 and marks Sparks's eighth film adaptation, following The Lucky One, Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe, Dear John and The Last Song, which thus far have a cumulative worldwide gross of nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars.
Sparks lives in North Carolina with his family. He contributes to a variety of local and national charities, and is a major contributor to the Creative Writing Program (MFA) at the University of Notre Dame, where he provides scholarships, internships, and a fellowship annually. Along with his wife, he founded The Epiphany School in New Bern, North Carolina. As a former full scholarship athlete (he still holds a track and field record at the University of Notre Dame) he also spent four years coaching track and field athletes at the local public high school. In 2009, the team he coached at New Bern High School set a World Junior Indoor Record in the 4 x400 meter in New York. The record still stands.
In 2011, Sparks and his wife launched the Nicholas Sparks Foundation, a nonprofit committed to improving cultural and international understanding through global education experiences for students of all ages. Between the foundation, and the personal gifts of Nicholas and Catherine Sparks, more than $10 million dollars have been distributed to deserving charities, scholarship programs, and projects. Because Nicholas and Catherine Sparks cover all operational expenses of the foundation, 100% of donations are devoted to programs.
On April 19-22, 2012, he launched the inaugural Nicholas Sparks Celebrity Family Weekend and Golf Tournament in New Bern, North Carolina, a weekend devoted to raising awareness and funds for the Foundation. Sparks and his family hosted stars from the worlds of sports, music, movies and television, along with fans, for a full calendar of events, raising over $500,000.
Nicholas Sparks's website
This bio was last updated on 01/18/2014. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.
A Bend in the Road was a challenging story to conceive and a difficult
story to write, though in all honesty, the reasons had more to do with events in
my own life than the process of putting the words down on paper. Originally, I'd
intended to start writing my new novel in January, 2000 but there were two
major events that made work of any kind difficult.
First, my third son was born on January 11th; within days of that event, I
learned that my younger sister, who'd been battling cancer for years, had just
been given a few months to live. I live in North Carolina and my sister lives in
California and I wanted to spend as much time with her as I could; I also wanted
to bond with my new child and the push and pull, the wonder of life and tragedy
of death, made concentration of any kind difficult. Every ninth day, I flew to
California to stay with my sister for four days, and those trips continued
through the end of May when she finally passed away. My sister, for those who
don't know, was the inspiration for Jamie Sullivan in A Walk to Remember,
and she was not only a sibling, but along with my wife and brother, my best
friend as well. Her loss, along with the death of both my parents, were without
a ...
In her own words: "I was born and raised in suburban Boston. My mother's death, when I was eight, was the defining event of a childhood that was otherwise ordinary. I took piano lessons and flute lessons. I took ballroom... (more)
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