Gayle Forman

(1971 - )

Forman began her career writing for Seventeen Magazine in which most of her articles focused on young people and social concerns. Later she became a freelance journalist for publications like Details Magazine, Jane Magazine, Glamour Magazine, The Nation, Elle Magazine, and Cosmopolitan Magazine. In 2002, she and her husband Nick took a trip around the world. From her journeys, she garnered a wealth of experiences and information which later served as a basis for her first book a travelogue You Can't Get There From Here: A Year On The Fringes Of A Shrinking World. In 2007 she published her first young adult novel Sisters in Sanity which she based on an article she had written for Seventeen. Her most recent novel If I Stay is about a 17 year old girl who has been involved in a tragic car accident. The novel follows Mia's experience as she lies in a coma fully aware of what is going on around her and everything her visitors say and do. Feeling the agony of loss of those closest to her yet aware of the abounding love of those that remain, she must make the choice to hang on or let go. Forman won the 2009 NAIBA Book of the Year Awards and is a 2010 Indie Choice Honor Award winner for If I Stay. She also wrote a sequel to If I Stay called Where She Went. It is about Adam and Mia's relationship after the accident. It is written in Adam's point of view.