Sara Gruen (born 1969 in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

) is an

author An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states: "''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...

with dual Canadian and U.S. citizenship. Her books often deal with animals and she supports numerous charitable organizations that support animals and wildlife. She is a 2007 recipient of an

Alex Award The Alex Awards annually recognize "ten books written for adults that have special appeal to young adults ages 12 through 18". Essentially, the award is a listing by the American Library Association parallel to its annual Best Books for Young A ...

Early life and education

Gruen was born in

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

. She recounts being left to survive on her own at age 15 as a

street urchin Street children are poor or homeless children who live on the streets of a city, town, or village. Homeless youth are often called street kids or street child; the definition of street children is contested, but many practitioners and policym ...

. She grew up in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

, and attended

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to serve returning Wo ...

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

to get a degree in English literature. She continued to live in Ottawa for 10 years after graduation.

Career

Gruen moved to the United States from Ottawa in 1999 for a technical writing job. When she was laid off two years later, she decided to try writing fiction. Gruen is an animal lover; both her first novel, ''Riding Lessons'', and her second novel, ''Flying Changes'', involve horses. Gruen's third book, the 1930s circus drama ''

Water for Elephants ''Water for Elephants'' is the third novel by the Canadian–American author Sara Gruen. The book was published in 2006 by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. The historical fiction novel is a 20th century circus drama. Gruen wrote the book as part ...

'', was initially turned down by her publisher at the time, Avon Books; as a result, Gruen found another publisher,

Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill Workman Publishing Company, Inc., is an American publisher of trade books founded by Peter Workman. The company is comprised of either imprints: Workman, Workman Children’s, Workman Calendars, Artisan, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill and Algon ...

. It went on to become a ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' bestseller and is now available in 45 languages and as a 2011

film adaptation A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dial ...

starring

Reese Witherspoon Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon (born March 22, 1976) is an American actress and producer. The recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and two Golden Globe Awards, she ...

, Christoph Waltz, and Robert Pattinson. Her fourth novel, ''

Ape House ''Ape House'' is a 2010 novel by Sara Gruen. It received generally mixed reviews. Plot A group of reporters visit the Great Ape Language Lab - a laboratory where bonobos are trained to communicate with humans by using American Sign Language an ...

'', centers around the

Bonobo The bonobo (; ''Pan paniscus''), also historically called the pygmy chimpanzee and less often the dwarf chimpanzee or gracile chimpanzee, is an endangered great ape and one of the two species making up the genus '' Pan,'' the other being the comm ...

ape and was sold to Spiegel & Grau on the basis of a 12-page summary. ''Ape House'' is published by Two Roads Books. Her fifth novel, ''At the Water's Edge'', was published in 2015.

Awards

Gruen's awards include being the BookSense #1 pick for June 2006, the Book Sense Book of the Year Award for Fiction 2007, the Cosmo Fun Fearless Fiction Award 2007, the BookBrowse Diamond Award Best Book 2006, the Great Lakes Book Award for Fiction 2007, the Midwest Booksellers' Choice Award for fiction, the ALA/Alex Award 2007, the Carl Sandburg Award, 21st Century Fiction, 2007, and the Friends of American Literature Adult Fiction Award. Additionally, she was a 2006 Quill Award nominee for General Fiction, and a nominee for the Entertainment Weekly Best Novel of 2006. She also received a Doctorate of Humane Letters, Causa Honoris, from Wittenberg University.

Involvement with the Charles Murdoch case

In June 2015, Gruen received a letter from Charles Murdoch, an inmate at a California prison. Murdoch is serving a life sentence without parole for murder. His letter praised ''Water for Elephants'' and also described the circumstances of his case. He told Gruen that former chief justice

Alex Kozinski Alex Kozinski (; born July 23, 1950) is a Romanian-American jurist and lawyer who was a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 1985 to 2017. He was a prominent and influential judge, and many of his law clerks went on to ...

of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit “described my (wrongful) conviction as ‘a truly spectacular

miscarriage of justice A miscarriage of justice occurs when a grossly unfair outcome occurs in a criminal procedure, criminal or civil procedure, civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they actual innocence, did not commit. Mis ...

.’”Murdoch v. Castro, 609 F.3d 983, 1009 (9th Cir. 2010) Murdoch's conviction was upheld by the

California Court of Appeal The California Courts of Appeal are the state intermediate appellate courts in the U.S. state of California. The state is geographically divided along county lines into six appellate districts.

despite Kozinski's doubts that he had received a fair trial. Gruen began to correspond with Murdoch and took up the cause of attempting to overturn his conviction, believing Murdoch's prosecution to have depended on a coerced confession by witness Dino Dinardo. She hired attorneys and investigators at her own expense, including former Los Angeles District Attorney's Office prosecutor

Robin Sax Robin Ann Sax (born January 1, 1972) is an author, lawyer, clinical therapist, legal analyst, radio host, an HLN contributor, and a former prosecutor for the State of California, County of Los Angeles and Riverside County District Attorney's O ...

, eventually spending more than half a million dollars on her fight to free Murdoch. Despite her efforts, Murdoch remains incarcerated, waiting for a response from the Los Angeles County’s Conviction Review Unit. In Gruen's own words, the effort to exonerate Murdoch has left her "absolutely broke", as she borrowed money against her home, and "seriously ill", with her writing work "years past deadline". Fearful of threats to her life, real or imagined, she left her home in spring 2018 and moved repeatedly to avoid being tracked, though she eventually returned to Asheville.

Personal life

Gruen lives in

Asheville Asheville ( ) is a city in, and the county seat of, Buncombe County, North Carolina. Located at the confluence of the French Broad and Swannanoa rivers, it is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the state's 11th-most populous ci ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

with her husband, the youngest of her three sons, and numerous pets, including horses Tia and Fancy.

References

External links

Sara Gruen's Official Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gruen, Sara Canadian women novelists 21st-century American novelists American women novelists 1969 births Living people 21st-century Canadian novelists Writers from Vancouver 21st-century Canadian women writers 21st-century American women writers