Sara Gruen (born 1969 in

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

) is a Canadian-American author. She is a 2007 recipient of the

Alex Award The Alex Awards annually recognize "ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults ages 12 through 18". Since 2002, the Alex Awards have been administered by the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of th ...

for

young adult literature Young adult literature (YA) is typically written for readers aged 12 to 18 and includes most of the themes found in adult fiction, such as family dysfunction, substance abuse, alcoholism, and sexuality. It is characterized by simpler world build ...

Early life and education

Gruen was born in

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

. She grew up in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

. She has claimed that at age 15, she was left to survive as street urchin. She attended

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public university, public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to se ...

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

and graduated with a degree in English literature. She continued to live in Ottawa for 10 years after graduation.

Career

Gruen moved to the United States from Ottawa in 1999 for a technical writing job. When she was laid off two years later, she decided to try writing fiction. Gruen is an animal lover; both her first novel, ''Riding Lessons'', and her second novel, ''Flying Changes'', involve horses. Gruen's third book, the 1930s circus drama ''

Water for Elephants Water is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula . It is a transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance. It is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known liv ...

'' (2006), was initially turned down by her publisher at the time, Avon Books; as a result, Gruen found another publisher, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. It went on to become a ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' bestseller and is now available in 45 languages and as a 2011

film adaptation A film adaptation transfers the details or story of an existing source text, such as a novel, into a feature film. This transfer can involve adapting most details of the source text closely, including characters or plot points, or the original sou ...

starring

Reese Witherspoon Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon (born March 22, 1976) is an American actress and producer. She is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Reese Witherspoon, various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Aw ...

, Christoph Waltz, and

Robert Pattinson Robert Douglas Thomas Pattinson (born 13 May 1986) is an English actor. #Filmography, His filmography often sees him portraying eccentric characters across a diverse range of genres. Known for starring in both major studio productions and in ...

. Water for Elephants has been turned into a musical and opened on Broadway in March 2024 after playing at Atlanta's Alliance Theatre in 2023. Her fourth novel, '' Ape House'', centers around the

Bonobo The bonobo (; ''Pan paniscus''), also historically called the pygmy chimpanzee (less often the dwarf chimpanzee or gracile chimpanzee), is an endangered great ape and one of the two species making up the genus ''Pan (genus), Pan'' (the other bei ...

ape and was sold to Spiegel & Grau based on a 12-page summary. ''Ape House'' is published by Two Roads Books. Her fifth novel, ''At the Water's Edge'', was published in 2015. Gruen's work often involves animals, and she supports charitable organizations that support animals and wildlife.

Awards

Gruen's awards include being the BookSense #1 pick for June 2006, the Book Sense Book of the Year Award for Fiction 2007, the Cosmo Fun Fearless Fiction Award 2007, the BookBrowse Diamond Award Best Book 2006, the Great Lakes Book Award for Fiction 2007, the Midwest Booksellers' Choice Award for fiction, the ALA/Alex Award 2007, the Carl Sandburg Award, 21st Century Fiction, 2007, and the Friends of American Literature Adult Fiction Award. Additionally, she was a 2006 Quill Award nominee for General Fiction, and a nominee for the Entertainment Weekly Best Novel of 2006. She also received a Doctorate of Humane Letters, Causa Honoris, from Wittenberg University.

Involvement with the Charles Murdoch case

In June 2015, Gruen received a letter from Charles Murdoch, an inmate at a California prison. Murdoch is serving a life sentence without parole for murder. His letter praised ''Water for Elephants'' and also described the circumstances of his case. He told Gruen that former chief justice Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit “described my (wrongful) conviction as ‘a truly spectacular

miscarriage of justice A miscarriage of justice occurs when an unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. Miscarriages are also known as wrongful convictions. Innocent ...

.’”Murdoch v. Castro, 609 F.3d 983, 1009 (9th Cir. 2010) Murdoch's conviction was upheld by the California Court of Appeal despite Kozinski's doubts that he had received a fair trial. Gruen began to correspond with Murdoch and took up the cause of attempting to overturn his conviction, believing Murdoch's prosecution to have depended on a coerced confession by witness Dino Dinardo. She hired attorneys and investigators at her own expense, including former Los Angeles District Attorney's Office prosecutor Robin Sax, eventually spending more than half a million dollars on her fight to free Murdoch. Despite her efforts, Murdoch remains incarcerated, waiting for a response from the Los Angeles County’s Conviction Review Unit. In Gruen's own words, the effort to exonerate Murdoch has left her "absolutely broke", as she borrowed money against her home, and "seriously ill", with her writing work "years past deadline". Fearful of threats to her life, real or imagined, she left her home in the spring 2018 and moved repeatedly to avoid being tracked, though she eventually returned to Asheville.

Personal life

Gruen lives in Asheville,

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

with her husband, the youngest of her three sons, and numerous pets, including horses Tia and Fancy.

References

External links

Sara Gruen's Official Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gruen, Sara Canadian women novelists 21st-century American novelists American women novelists 1969 births Living people 21st-century Canadian novelists Novelists from Vancouver 21st-century Canadian women writers 21st-century American women writers Date of birth missing (living people)