Sara Zarr is the author of eight novels for young adults, and “Courageous Creativity: Advice and Encouragement for the Creative Life.” She’s a National Book Award finalist and two-time Utah Book Award winner. Her books have been variously named to annual best books lists of the American Library Association, Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly, School Library Journal, the Guardian, the International Reading Association, the New York Public Library and Los Angeles Public Library, and have been translated into many languages. She has served as a judge for the National Book Award.

Sara has written essays, creative nonfiction, and short fiction for Image, Hunger Mountain online, Response, Gather, and Relief Journal as well as for several anthologies, and is a MacDowell Fellow (2014). Sara also hosts and produces the This Creative Life podcast (2012-2015; 2020-). Her first book, “Story of a Girl,” was made into a 2017 television movie directed by Kyra Sedgwick. She divides her time between Utah and California and is currently on the MFA faculty at Lesley University and Seattle Pacific University. She has lived with diabetes for more than a decade.