Libba Bray

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Libba Bray

Libba Bray (born Martha E. Bray on March 11, 1964 in Alabama) is an author of young adult novels, including the books A Great and Terrible Beauty and Rebel Angels. As of July 2006, she is working on the third book in the trilogy, which is due to be out September 27, 2007. It is to be published under the name The Sweet Far Thing.

She lived in Texas until she was 26 years old. After that she moved to New York City, New York, where she now lives with her husband and eight-year-old son. Her father was a preacher and her mother, a teacher. In her autobiography on her official site she states:

My dad was a Presbyterian minister. Yes, I am one of those dreaded P.K.s-Preacher's Kids. Be afraid. Be very afraid...:

[edit] 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 due to this accident.^[1]

Bray graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1988 as a Theatre major. As a budding playwright, she felt it important to be in New York. When her childhood best friend, already living in Manhattan, 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 agent and Ginee Seo, an editor at Simon & Schuster. Before this, using a pseudonym, she had written three books for 17th Street Press (a publisher of romances).

Her first novel, A Great and Terrible Beauty 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.[1]