Beyond the Book: Background information when reading Life As We Knew It

Beyond the Book

This article relates to Life As We Knew It

Susan Beth Pfeffer was born in New York City in 1948. She grew up in the city and its nearby suburbs and spent summers in the Catskill Mountains. When she was six her father wrote and published a book on constitutional law, and Pfeffer decided that she, too, wanted to be a writer. That year she wrote her first story, about the love between an Oreo cookie and a pair of scissors. However, it wasn't until 1970 that her first book, Just Morgan, was published. She wrote it during her last semester at New York University; since then, she has been a full-time writer for young people.

She has won numerous awards and citations for her work, which range from picture books to middle-grade and young-adult novels, and include both contemporary and historical fiction. She is also the author of the popular Portraits of Little Women series for grades 3-6, and has written a book for adults on writing for children.

To date, she has written more than 60 books, most notably About David, which was awarded the South Carolina Young Adult Book Award, and The Year Without Michael, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and winner of the South Carolina Young Adult Book Award. The Year Without Michael was also named by the American Library Association as one of the hundred best books for teenagers written between

She has recently published The Dead and the Gone, a companion novel to Life As We Knew It. 1968-1993.

When she is not working, she enjoys watching movies, both new and old, and collecting movie memorabilia, reading biographies and histories, and eating foods that are bad for her. She lives in Middletown, New York, with her two cats, Alexander and Emily.

Full bibliography at FantasticFiction.com.

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This "beyond the book article" relates to Life As We Knew It. It originally ran in February 2007 and has been updated for the May 2008 paperback edition. Go to magazine.