Stephenie
Meyer
The writer of the vampire romance series Twilight Stephenie Meyer,
who was born December 24, 1973 in America, was the biggest selling
author of both 2008 and 2009, having sold over 29 million books in 2008
alone, with Twilight being the best-selling book of the year. She sold
an additional 26.5 million books in 2009, making her the first author
to achieve this feat. Meyer was ranked #49 on Tim magazine's list of the
"100 Most Influential People in 2008", and was also included in the
Forbes Celebrity 100 list of the world's most powerful celebrities in
2009, entering at #26. Her annual earnings exceeded $50 million.
Meyer says that the idea for Twilight
came to her in a dream on June 2, 2003. The dream was about a human
girl, and a vampire who was in love with her but thirsted for her
blood. Based on this dream, Meyer wrote the draft of what is now Chapter
13 of the book. In a matter of three months she had transformed her
dream into a complete novel, though she claims that she never intended
to publish Twilight and was writing for her own enjoyment. Her sister's
response to the book was enthusiastic and she persuaded Meyer to send
the manuscript to literary agencies. Of the 15 letters she wrote, five
went unanswered, nine brought rejections, and the last was a positive
response from Jodi Reamer of Writers House. Eight publishers competed
for the rights to publish Twilight in a 2003 auction. By November,
Meyer had signed a $750,000 three-book deal with Little, Brown and
Company.
Meyer cites many novels as inspiration for the Twilight series,
including Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and Anne of Green Gables by L.M.
Montgomery. Each book in the series was also inspired specifically by a
different literary classic: Twilight by Jane Austen's Pride and
Prejudice; New
Moon by Shakespeare's Romeo and
Juliet;
Eclipse by Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights; and
Breaking Dawn's theme by Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and
A Midsummer Night's Dream. Meyer said, "I've been reading books for
adults my entire life. Growing up I was an avid reader—the thicker the
book, the better. She also said she is a huge fan of Orson Scott Card,
and "can't go through a year without re-reading" Jane
Austen's books.
Entertainment Weekly has hailed Meyer as "the world's most popular
vampire novelist since Anne Rice", while The Guardian described her as
an "imaginative storyteller, a prolific author and a newly powerful
figure in the publishing market
