Laurie Halse Anderson

Laurie Halse Anderson was born Laurie Beth Halse on October 23, 1961, in Potsdam, New York, to Rev. Frank A. Halse Jr. and Joyce Holcomb Halse. She grew up there with her younger sister, Lisa, and showed an early interest in writing in second grade. As a teenager, she loved reading, especially science fiction and fantasy, though she did not imagine that she would become a writer. She attended Fayetteville-Manlius High School in Manlius, New York, near Syracuse.

Her youth included experiences that widened her view of work, language, and independence. During her senior year, at sixteen, Anderson moved out of her parents’ house and spent thirteen months as an exchange student on a pig farm in Denmark. After returning home, she worked at a clothing store for minimum wage, an experience that motivated her to attend college. She graduated from Georgetown University with a degree in languages and linguistics. Anderson later married Greg Anderson, with whom she had two daughters, Stephanie Holcomb and Meredith Lauren. After the couple divorced, she married Scot Larrabee, and their combined family included her daughters and Larrabee’s children, Jessica and Christian.

Anderson began her professional life as a freelance journalist and worked at The Philadelphia Inquirer early in her career. At the same time, she began writing books for children and young adults, persisting through rejection letters. Her first children’s novel, Ndito Runs, appeared in 1996 and was based on Kenyan Olympic marathon runners who ran to and from school each day. That same year, she published Turkey Pox, inspired by her daughter Meredith breaking out with chickenpox on Thanksgiving. In 1998, she published No Time For Mother’s Day, using the same characters.

Anderson became widely recognized with Speak, published in 1999 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The novel, about a thirteen-year-old girl who becomes mute after a sexual assault, became a New York Times Bestseller, was a finalist for the National Book Award, and was adapted into a 2004 film starring Kristen Stewart as Melinda Sordino. Its paperback edition was published in 2001 by Puffin Books, and the novel has been translated into 16 languages. In 2018, Anderson revealed that she was raped when she was thirteen and that Speak was based on her experience. She later wrote the memoir Shout, about her teenage life, including details of the rape and the trauma that followed.

Her work continued across young adult fiction, historical fiction, picture books, and nonfiction. Fever 1793, published in 2000, is set in Philadelphia during the yellow fever epidemic and became a Publishers Weekly Bestseller. Catalyst, published in 2002, takes place in the same high school as Speak. Other major books include Thank You, Sarah! The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving, Prom, Twisted, Wintergirls, and the Seeds of America trilogy, beginning with Chains in 2008. Anderson received the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association in 2010 for her contribution to young adult literature, and in 2023 she received the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.

Anderson’s books are often read for their direct attention to teenagers facing fear, pressure, silence, illness, history, and the need to speak honestly. Her own reading life, her time abroad, her journalism, her family stories, and her personal history all shaped the subjects she chose. She wrote for young readers without talking down to them, and that clarity is a large part of why her words still carry weight.