Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (April 16, 1984) is an American author of fantasy and young adult literature. She was born in Silver Spring, Maryland and lived most of her life in Concord, Massachusetts. Her debut novel, "In the Forests of the Night," was published in 1999, when she was just fourteen years old. She has published a new young adult novel every subsequent year since her first and has moved from her family's Sudbury home to a nearby Massachusetts town.

Biography

Often dubbed "the goth princess" in her early years and as the "teen successor to Anne Rice", Atwater-Rhodes wrote her first bloody novel at the age of thirteen. At the time, she said she had over a dozen stories in various stages sitting on her shelves.

After being in a play with the son of an English teacher, the son proceeded to brag that Atwater-Rhodes was trying to get a book published. As it turns out the English teacher was also a literary agent and asked to read some of her work and later to represent her.

Two months later, on her fourteenth birthday, Amelia received a phone call telling her that Bantam Doubleday Dell had accepted her manuscript, "White Wine", for publication. Her agent, Tom Hart, said it was "the easiest sale [he] ever had." "White Wine" would later be published when Amelia was fifteen as "In the Forests of the Night".

Amelia graduated magna cum laude from the University of Massachusetts with a double-major in English and psychology. She has considered attending Northwestern University for her MAT. She has in the past said she wants to be a teacher.

She has been featured in "Seventeen", JUMP* Magazine, "Entertainment Weekly", "USA Today", "The New Yorker", "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" and "CBS This Morning". Several of her novels have been ALA Quick Picks for Young Adults; Hawksong was "The School Library Journal" Best Book of the Year, and "Voice of Youth Advocates" Best Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Selection.

Plagiarism

"Several years ago, I was in a writing group, named Riskai. To that group, I submitted several works, including a draft of a book I had been working on, titled (at that time)" Predator, Prey.

"A little while after that, I discovered two very personal pieces I had posted up on a writing website, with someone else's name on them. As you might imagine, this upset me greatly; after some argument, I managed to have the pieces removed."

"I thought that was the last of the plagiarism, but a couple months later, someone asked me about" He Who Carries the Whip.

"For the record:" He Who Carries The Whip "was" Predator, Prey", posted illegally, without my permission or knowledge, with all the names changed (including my own). Shortly after the plagiarism witch-hunt which ultimately destroyed my beloved writing group, I understand that the person who posted" Carries "added a note saying something along the lines of my wanting to post my work to see what kind of feedback I would get without having my name attached."

"I do not have an account on [http://www.fanfiction.net FanFiction.net] , and as of this date (June 12, 2006) I have never had one. I do not have an account on any fanfiction site."

-Amelia Atwater-Rhodes (as written at [http://community.livejournal.com/aarbooklovers/43921.html AARBookLovers] at [http://www.livejournal.com LiveJournal] on June 12, 2006)

"Predator, Prey" was published in 2002 as "Midnight Predator".

Website

Amelia operates, codes, and participates actively in her own website, [http://nyeusigrube.com Nyeusigrube.com] . The name translates in the language of her characters as "Den of Shadows." The site has a large collection of information on her world, characters, books, a blog she updates, and a message board with over 1100 users and 9000 articles (August 2007). Below is a brief history of the message board that has been found on Amelia's site since it's launch in September 2004. The site still has several "Coming Soon" areas and has for several years.

"TDoS was first inspired, much like my writing, by boredom. Several years ago, LJ and Kel, two friends of mine, decided- I believe while babysitting- to pass time by building me a web site. Through a great deal of hard work by those two and later by LJ and her friend Tyler, tDoS blossomed in a way I certainly had not imagined. At the time, I knew next to nothing about web site design, so a great deal of credit really must go to the love and labor that those aforementioned put into this realm."

"When LJ and Tyler moved on from tDoS, I was at a first completely lost. The original code was their property, so I didn't have that to work with (not that I could read more than the basic parts of it, anyway). It probably would have been easier to leave The Den of Shadows as a memory, but I hated to take away the heart of the community that had grown around this site. I did a great deal of research and managed to throw together some HTML while LJ and Tyler were deliberating, so I had something to put up when they officially announced their resignation on September 2, 2004."

Publications

Novels:

*1999 "In the Forests of the Night"
*2000 "Demon in My View"
*2001 "Shattered Mirror"
*2002 "Midnight Predator"
*2008 Persistence of Memory

The Kiesha'ra Series:

*2003 "Hawksong"
*2004 "Snakecharm"
*2005 "Falcondance"
*2006 "Wolfcry"
*2007 "Wyvernhail"

External links

* [http://www.nyeusigrube.com/ Author's Official Web Site]
* [http://www.randomhouse.com/features/atwaterrhodes/index.htm Random House website]
* [http://teenreading.allinfoabout.com/features/rhodes.html All Info About Teen Reading - The Books of Amelia Atwater-Rhodes]
* [http://slayground.livejournal.com/398553.html Amelia Atwater-Rhodes interview at Bildungsroman]

Articles

* [http://www.randomhouse.com/teens/authors/results.pperl?authorid=1012]
* [http://biography.jrank.org/pages/2248/Atwater-Rhodes-Amelia-1984.html]
* [http://archives.cnn.com/2000/books/news/02/25/teen.spirit/]
* [http://archive.pla.org/publications/publibraries/booktalk/booktalk_atwater.html]
* [http://www.salon.com/books/log/1999/07/16/amelia/print.html]
* [http://www.smmirror.com/volume6/issue20/books_in_the.asp]
* [http://www.dailynewstranscript.com/archive/x1572629409]
* [http://www.teenreads.com/authors/au-atwater-rhodes-amelia.asp]
* [http://www.kidzworld.com/article/3189-amelia-atwater-rhodes-interview]
* [http://www.teenfx.com/interview.cfm?prod=&sec=&inter_id=332]
* [http://www.teenspoint.org/reading_matters/columns2.asp?column_id=921&column_type=tpauthprofile]
* [http://www.myspace.com/atwaterrhodes]
* [http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=BG&p_theme=bg&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EADDD868FDB4B20&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM]
* [http://www.metrotimes.com/20/41/Reviews/litBlood.html]
* [http://edition.cnn.com/books/news/9907/29/teen.writer.salon/index.html]
* [http://www.accessmylibrary.com/premium/0286/0286-1082544.html]