Sarah Beth Durst

Sarah Beth Durst is an American author of fantasy. Her 2016 novel ''Queen of the Blood'' won a 2017 Alex Award from the American Library Association. Durst writes for adults, young adults, and middle grade level readers.

Career

Sarah Beth Durst, born Sarah Beth Angelini, grew up in Northborough, Massachusetts. As a child, she attended Lincoln Street Elementary School in Northborough. She later attended Bancroft School in Worcester, from which she graduated in 1992. While still in high school, she wrote a musical about intersections between fairy tales and the real world, which she has described as "horrible." She would later return to these themes in her debut novel, ''Into the Wild''. After finishing high school, Durst attended Princeton University, which serves as the setting for her fourth novel, ''Enchanted Ivy''. At Princeton, Durst majored in English literature and completed a concentration in theater and dance. After graduating from Princeton in 1996, Durst lived briefly in the UK before returning to Massachusetts for several years. Durst currently resides in Stony Brook, New York.

In 2007, Durst published her first novel, ''Into the Wild'', for young adults. ''Into the Wild'' and its 2008 sequel, ''Out of the Wild'', draw on fairy tale characters living in the real world to explore questions of free will. The Wild is an amoral force that seeks to organize people into stories with no concern for the effects these rearrangements have on individuals' lives. Landmarks from Central Massachusetts, where Durst grew up, feature in both novels; these include the Higgins Armory and Bancroft Tower. ''Into the Wild'' was a finalist for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, the first of multiple nominations for the Andre Norton Award that Durst's work has received.

Durst returned to the theme of fairy tales in 2009 with ''Ice'', a modern retelling of the fairy tale East of the Sun, West of the Moon. In Durst's version, the protagonist is an aspiring arctic researcher in Alaska who encounters and marries a polar bear munaqsri, or transporter of souls. With ''Ice'', Durst became a finalist for an Andre Norton Award for a second time.

''Ice'' was followed by ''Enchanted Ivy'' in 2010, set at Princeton University, where Durst studied as an undergrad. In 2011 Durst published ''Drink, Slay, Love'', a young adult novel about vampires. Its title is a parody of ''Eat, Pray, Love,'' a bestselling memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert, and reflects the tongue-in-cheek humor of the novel. ''Drink, Slay, Love'' is being made into a Lifetime movie directed by Vanessa Parise and produced by Bella Thorne. Pearl, the novel's sixteen-year-old vampire protagonist, is played by Cierra Ramirez. The film is scheduled to air in early 2017.

Durst won her first writing award for ''Vessel'', published in 2012. ''Vessel'' won a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature and was a finalist for an Andre Norton Award. Durst followed ''Vessel'' with the young adult novel ''Conjured'' in 2013, which was a finalist for a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award.

In 2014 Durst published ''The Lost'', her first novel for adults. That same year, Durst also published the young adult novel ''Chasing Power'', for the first time publishing not one novel, but two in a year.

The subsequent year Durst published ''The Girl Who Could Not Dream'', written for middle grade readers and a finalist for a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award.

In 2016, Durst published her second novel for adults, an epic fantasy entitled ''The Queen of Blood''. The first in Durst's Queens of Renthia series, ''The Queen of Blood'' won an ALA Alex Award. Durst has stated that ''The Queen of Blood'' was inspired in part by a mishap she experienced at a writer's retreat in the Poconos. The novel's cover was designed by illustrator Stephan Martiniere.

Bibliography

Adult fiction

;Queens of Renthia
*''The Queen of Blood'' (2016)
*''The Reluctant Queen'' (2017)
*''The Queen of Sorrow'' (2018)
*''The Deepest Blue'' (2019) (Renthia standalone)

;Others
*'' The Lost'' (2014)
*''Race the Sands'' (2020)
*''The Bone Maker'' (2021)

Young adult

*''Ice'' (2009)
*''Enchanted Ivy'' (2010)
*''Drink, Slay, Love'' (2011)
*''Vessel'' (2012)
*''Conjured'' (2013)
*''Chasing Power'' (2014)
*''Fire and Heist'' (2018)

Middle Grade

*''The Girl Who Could Not Dream'' (2015)
*''Journey Across the Hidden Islands'' (2017)
*''The Stone Girl's Story'' (2018)
*''Spark'' (2019)
*''Catalyst'' (2020)
*''Even and Odd'' (2021)

;The Wild
*''Into the Wild'' (2007)
*''Out of the Wild'' (2008)

Picture Book

*''Roar and Sparkes Go to School'' (2017)

Short stories

*"The Hedgewitch" in ''Unfettered II: New Tales by Masters of Fantasy'' (2016)

Awards and nominations

* ''The Queen of Blood'' (2016)
** 2017: Won the ALA Alex Award
* ''The Girl Who Could Not Dream'' (2015)
**2016: Finalist for Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature
* ''Conjured'' (2013)
**2014: Finalist for Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature
* ''Vessel'' (2012)
**2013: Won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children's Literature
**2012: Finalist for Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy
* ''Ice'' (2009)
**2009: Finalist for Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy
* ''Into the Wild'' (2007)
**2007: Finalist for Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy

Personal life

Durst lives with her husband and two children, and a cat named Gwen in Stony Brook, New York.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Durst, Sarah Beth
Living people
Princeton University alumni
American women novelists
American fantasy writers
21st-century American novelists
21st-century American women writers
Women science fiction and fantasy writers
People from Northborough, Massachusetts
Novelists from Massachusetts
1974 births