Sarah Dessen was born in 1970 in Illinois, but spent almost her entire life in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Both of her parents are professors—her mother is a classicist and her father teaches Shakespeare. She has one sibling, an older brother.

Dessen's writing career began when she was eight years old. Her parents gave her an old manual typewriter and a little desk in the corner of the family's den, where she would sit and type her stories. She admits to a long-standing ability to embellish the truth, which sometimes got her into trouble. But it also helped her in her craft: embellishing helped her learn how to make a story better. In addition to telling stories, she was also a fervent reader, a habit she picked up from her parents.

Many of Dessen's high school friends have inspired the stories in her...