Nicholas Sparks

Biography

Born on December 31, 1965, Nicholas Sparks wrote his first (unpublished) novel while sidelined by a sports injury. He then attended the University of Notre Dame and went into sales. Business setbacks got him writing again and in 1995 he finished The Notebook, which was a best-seller and later turned into a hit movie. He followed this novel with Message in a Bottle, Nights in Rodanthe and The Longest Ride, among others.

Family
Nicholas Sparks was born in 1965 in Omaha, Nebraska, the second of three children. His father, Patrick Michael (Mike), was a graduate student for much of Nicholas' early life, so the family lived in a number of college towns before settling in Fair Oaks, California, when Nicholas was eight. Nicholas' mother, Jill EmmaMarie (Jill), worked as both a homemaker and optometrist's assistant. All three Sparks children, including Nicholas' older brother, Micah, and younger sister, Danielle, were born within a three-year period, and the closeness in age created a strong bond between them.

Education and Work Experience
Nicholas excelled in high school, graduating valedictorian of his class and earning notice as a middle-distance runner. He accepted a full athletic scholarship to the University of Notre Dame and set a school record as part of a relay team, but he found himself hampered by an Achilles tendon injury the summer after his freshman year. With time on his hands and little to do but recover, Nicholas wrote his first novel, The Passing, which was never published. According to Nicholas, it will never be, but the experience began to hone his writing skills.

Nicholas graduated from Notre Dame in 1988 with a degree in finance and married his wife, Cathy, in 1989, a year that would also bring a deep sadness to Nicholas' life — his mother passed away at the age of 47 from a horseback riding accident. That year was also when Nicholas wrote his second novel, The Royal Murders, which also remains unpublished.

Works
At the age of 28, Nicholas decided to make another concerted, even more serious, effort at writing. To that end, he spent the second half of 1994 writing a novel he called The Notebook, scheduling his writing time around his family's schedule. A year later, while living in Greenville, South Carolina, where he was transferred for his pharmaceutical sales job, Nicholas was offered a contract by a young, new agent with no published novels to her credit. Despite her inexperience, however, Theresa Park was able not only to sell the manuscript to Warner Books but also to secure a $1 million advance, much to the Nicholas' shock . . . and elation! Ms. Park, along with United Talent Agency, also sold the film rights to New Line Cinema.

The next year also brought a mix of success and tragedy: Nicholas' father died in an automobile accident at the age of 54, just a month before Nicholas embarked on a 45-city tour to promote The Notebook. That novel eventually spent 55 weeks on both The New York Times hardcover and The New York Times paperback bestseller lists and was translated into 45 languages.

Over the next several years, Nicholas continued to write, saw several of his novels adapted into film, and welcomed three more children to his family. Today, Nicholas lives in North Carolina, where he continues his prolific writing career and lives with his wife Cathy and their five children: Miles, Ryan, Landon, and twins Lexie and Savannah.