Libba Bray
Encyclopedia
A Great and Terrible Beauty
A Great and Terrible Beauty is the first novel in the Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray. It is told from the perspective of Gemma Doyle, a girl in the year 1895.Gemma leaves her home in India to go to a boarding school in England after her mother dies...
, Rebel Angels
Rebel Angels (Libba Bray novel)
Rebel Angels is the second book in a fantasy trilogy by Libba Bray. It is the sequel to A Great and Terrible Beauty and continues the story of Gemma Doyle, a girl in the late 19th century with the power of second sight. The novel follows Gemma and her friends, Felicity and Ann, during their winter...
, The Sweet Far Thing
The Sweet Far Thing
The Sweet Far Thing is a novel by Libba Bray that was released on December 26, 2007. It is the sequel to the best-selling A Great and Terrible Beauty and Rebel Angels....
and Going Bovine
Going Bovine
Going Bovine is a 2009 surreal dark comedy novel by Libba Bray. It follows the experiences of high school junior Cameron Smith as he suffers from transmissible spongiform encephalopathy.-Plot summary:...
.
She lived in Texas until she was 26 years old. After that she moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, New York, where she now lives with her husband and nine-year-old son. Her father was a preacher
Preacher
Preacher is a term for someone who preaches sermons or gives homilies. A preacher is distinct from a theologian by focusing on the communication rather than the development of doctrine. Others see preaching and theology as being intertwined...
and her mother, a teacher
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
. In her autobiography on her official site she states:
Biography
At the age of eighteen, Bray was involved in a serious car accident and had to undergo thirteen surgeries in six years to reconstruct her face. She has an artificial left eye because of this accident.Bray graduated from the University of Texas at Austin
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin is a state research university located in Austin, Texas, USA, and is the flagship institution of the The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, its campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol in Austin...
in 1988 as a Theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
major. As a budding playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
, she felt it important to be in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. When her childhood best friend, already living in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, called saying she was looking for a roommate, Bray was soon on her way to New York. Her first job was in the publicity department of Penguin Putnam, followed by three years at Spier, an advertising agency specializing in book advertising.
Bray was encouraged to write a young adult novel by her husband, Barry Goldblatt, a children's book
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
agent and Ginee Seo, an editor at Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster, Inc., a division of CBS Corporation, is a publisher founded in New York City in 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. It is one of the four largest English-language publishers, alongside Random House, Penguin and HarperCollins...
. Before this, using a pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
, she had written three books for 17th Street Press (a publisher of romances).
Her first novel, A Great and Terrible Beauty
A Great and Terrible Beauty
A Great and Terrible Beauty is the first novel in the Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray. It is told from the perspective of Gemma Doyle, a girl in the year 1895.Gemma leaves her home in India to go to a boarding school in England after her mother dies...
became a New York Times bestseller. In November 2006, a video promoting the book was a part of The Book Standard's Teen Book Video Awards. She wrote two more books to finish the trilogy she had started with A Great and Terrible Beauty: Rebel Angels and The Sweet Far Thing
The Sweet Far Thing
The Sweet Far Thing is a novel by Libba Bray that was released on December 26, 2007. It is the sequel to the best-selling A Great and Terrible Beauty and Rebel Angels....
.
Libba is friends with many young adult authors including Maureen Johnson
Maureen Johnson
Maureen Johnson is an American author of young adult fiction. She has published eight young adult novels to date, including the Suite Scarlett series and The Last Little Blue Envelope. Johnson is also the founder of the political networking site .-Early life:Maureen Johnson is a graduate of the...
. Bray is also good friends with fellow YA fantasy authors Holly Black
Holly Black
Holly Black née Riggenbach is an American writer and editor, best known for writing The Spiderwick Chronicles, a series of children's fantasy books she created with illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi.-Early life and education:...
and Cassandra Clare
Cassandra Clare
Cassandra Clare is an American author who has written the bestselling young adult saga The Mortal Instruments.- Personal life :Cassandra Clare was born to American parents in Tehran. As a child Clare traveled frequently, spending time in Switzerland, England, and France...
; all of them are represented by Bray's husband, a literary agent. Her blog can be read on http://libba-bray.livejournal.com/.
Going Bovine
Going Bovine
Going Bovine is a 2009 surreal dark comedy novel by Libba Bray. It follows the experiences of high school junior Cameron Smith as he suffers from transmissible spongiform encephalopathy.-Plot summary:...
a dark comedy about a 16 year old boy named Cameron who has mad cow disease and a 16-year-old dwarf named Gonzo whom he met in the hospital, was released in 2009 and received the 2010 Michael L. Printz Award
Michael L. Printz Award
The Michael L. Printz Award is an annual award in the United States for a book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature. It is named for a school librarian from Topeka, Kansas, who was a long-time active member of the Young Adult Library Services Association...
for excellence in young adult literature. Gonzo is a video gamer who thinks that everything is trying to kill him. Cameron has visitation from a punkish angel named Dulcie who has a propensity for spray-painting her wings. They are all on a mission to cure Cameron's mad cow disease.
Bray's newest novel Beauty Queens was published by Scholastic Press on May 24, 2011.
Books
- The Gemma Doyle TrilogyGemma Doyle TrilogyThe Gemma Doyle Trilogy is a trilogy of fantasy novels by Libba Bray. They are told from the perspective of Gemma Doyle, a girl in the late nineteenth century...
- A Great and Terrible BeautyA Great and Terrible BeautyA Great and Terrible Beauty is the first novel in the Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray. It is told from the perspective of Gemma Doyle, a girl in the year 1895.Gemma leaves her home in India to go to a boarding school in England after her mother dies...
, Simon and Schuster (2003) - Rebel Angels, Simon and Schuster (2005)
- The Sweet Far ThingThe Sweet Far ThingThe Sweet Far Thing is a novel by Libba Bray that was released on December 26, 2007. It is the sequel to the best-selling A Great and Terrible Beauty and Rebel Angels....
, Simon and Schuster (2007) - Going BovineGoing BovineGoing Bovine is a 2009 surreal dark comedy novel by Libba Bray. It follows the experiences of high school junior Cameron Smith as he suffers from transmissible spongiform encephalopathy.-Plot summary:...
, Delacorte Books (2009) - Beauty Queens, Scholastic Press (2011)
Other works
- 21 Proms, Scholastic Paperbacks (2007)
- The Restless Dead, Candlewick (2007)
- Up All Night, HarperTeen (2008)
- Vacations from Hell, HarperTeen (2009)
- The Thirteenth Step, a short story in The Eternal Kiss (2009)