Meg Rosoff - Life and Career

Life and Career

Rosoff was born in Boston, MA in 1956, the second of four sisters. Her family was Jewish (Rosoff has since become an atheist). She attended Harvard University in 1974. After 3 years at Harvard she moved to England and studied sculpture at Central St. Martins in London, England. She returned to the United States to finish her degree in 1980, and later moved to New York City for 9 years, where she worked in publishing and advertising.

In 1989 (aged 32) Rosoff returned to London and has lived there ever since. Between 1989 and 2003, she worked for a variety of advertising agencies as a copywriter. She began to write novels after her youngest sister died of breast cancer. Her young adult novel How I Live Now was published in 2004, in the same week she was diagnosed with breast cancer. It won the annual Guardian Children's Fiction prize, a once-in-a-lifetime book award judged by a panel of British children's book writers, and the annual Michael L. Printz Award from the American Library Association, recognising the year's best book for young adults. In 2005 she published a children's book, Meet Wild Boars, which was illustrated by Sophie Blackall. Her second novel, Just in Case, was published in 2006 and won the 2007 CILIP Carnegie Medal and Germany's Jugendliteraturpreis. What I Was was published on August 30, 2007, followed by two additional collaborations with Sophie Blackall: Wild Boars Cook and Jumpy Jack and Googily. Her fourth novel, The Bride's Farewell, was released in 2009 and named one of the ten best books for young adults that were published in the U.S. for the adult market. Her latest book, There Is No Dog, was published in the UK in 2011, and in the US in 2012.

The film of How I Live Now is currently in pre-production.