Laurie Halse Anderson

About Laurie Halse Anderson

Laurie Halse Anderson was born Laurie Beth Halse on October 23, 1961, in Potsdam, New York, a small college town in the St. Lawrence River valley. She began her writing career as a freelance journalist for the Philadelphia Inquirer before turning to children's and young adult fiction. Her first children's novel, Ndito Runs, was published in 1996. Three years later, Speak (1999) transformed her career and the landscape of young adult literature.

Speak tells the story of Melinda Sordino, a ninth-grader who stops speaking after she is raped at a party the summer before high school. The novel's unflinching treatment of sexual assault, trauma, and the silence that surrounds it made it both a critical success and a target of repeated censorship efforts. It was a finalist for the National Book Award, won the Golden Kite Award, the Edgar Allan Poe Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and spent weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. A film adaptation starring Kristen Stewart was released in 2004.

Historical Fiction and Later Work

Alongside her contemporary YA novels, Anderson has built an acclaimed body of historical fiction. Fever 1793 (2000) is set during the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia. Her Seeds of America trilogy—beginning with Chains (2008), which won the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction—tells the story of Isabel, an enslaved girl during the Revolutionary War. Wintergirls (2009) addresses eating disorders, and Shout (2019), a memoir in verse, revisits the experiences that led her to write Speak and explores the wave of survivors who came forward after reading it.

Awards and Advocacy

Anderson received the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association in 2009 in recognition of her lasting contribution to young adult literature. In 2023, she was awarded the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award—administered by the Swedish Arts Council and worth five million Swedish kronor—making her one of the most decorated authors in the history of children's literature. She has been a vocal opponent of book banning and a supporter of the survivors who have written to her over the years crediting Speak with breaking their own silences.