Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (Born on April 16, 1984) is an American author of fantasy and young adult literature. She was born in Silver Spring, Maryland and lived most of her life in Concord, Massachusetts. Her debut novel, In the Forests of the Night, was published in 1999,[1] when she was just fourteen years old.[2] She has published a new young adult novel every subsequent year since her first and has moved from her family's Sudbury home to a nearby Massachusetts town.[3]
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Atwater was born in 1984 to Susan Atwater-Rhodes, a vice principal of Acton-Boxborough Regional High School. </ref>[4]
In her early years and as the "teen successor to Anne Rice", Atwater-Rhodes wrote her first novel at the age of thirteen.[3] At the time, she said she had over a dozen stories in various stages sitting on her shelves.
In middle school, Atwater-Rhodes was being questioned by an English teacher who remembered her older sister when a girl she knew proceeded to brag that Atwater-Rhodes was trying to get a book published. As it turns out the English teacher was also a literary agent and asked to read some of her work and later to represent her.[2][5]
Two months later, on her fourteenth birthday, Atwater-Rhodes received a phone call telling her that Bantam Doubleday Dell had accepted her manuscript, White Wine, for publication.[3] Her agent, Tom Hart, said it was "the fastest sale [he] ever had."[3] White Wine would later be published when Atwater-Rhodes was fifteen as In the Forests of the Night.
Atwater-Rhodes graduated Concord-Carlisle High in 2001, a year early.[3] She completed her junior and senior years in one year.[6] Atwater-Rhodes graduated magna cum laude from the University of Massachusetts with a double-major in English and psychology. She has considered attending Northwestern University for her MAT. She has in the past said she wants to be a teacher.
On February 26[7] and 27, 2009, she announced on her blog that she is engaged to her partner of two years, Mandi.[8]
She has been featured in Seventeen, JUMP* Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, The New Yorker, The Rosie O'Donnell Show and CBS This Morning. Several of her novels have been ALA Quick Picks for Young Adults; Hawksong was The School Library Journal Best Book of the Year,[9] and Voice of Youth Advocates Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Selection.
Atwater-Rhodes operates, codes, and participates actively in her own website, Nyeusigrube.com. The name translates in the language of her characters as "Den of Shadows." The site has a large collection of information on her world, characters, books, a blog she updates, and a message board with over 2,600 users and 12,700 articles (December 2010).
*Contains: In the Forests of the Night, Demon in My View, Shattered Mirror, and Midnight Predator
**Contains: Hawksong, Snakecharm, Falcondance, Wolfcry, and Wyvernhail