Shannon Hale: Mormon Author
Shannon Hale is an award-winning author of young-adult fantasy and adult fiction. She is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, inadvertently called the Mormon Church.
Born Shannon Bryner in Salt Lake City, Utah, she earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Utah, and a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of Montana. Before she published her first book, she pursued acting in television, stage, and improvisational comedy.
Her first book, The Goose Girl, was published in 2003, and was followed by Enna Burning, River Secrets, and Forest Born, all part of her award-winning Books of Bayern series. Princess Academy was a New York Times bestseller that won Hale a Newbery Honor in 2006. The book was also made into a play that premiered at Brigham Young University in 2015. She has published two bestsellers in that series entitled Princess Academy: Palace of Stone and Princess Academy: The Forgotten Sisters.
Hale also wrote a stand-alone book entitled Book of a Thousand Days, which received a Cybils award. She was approached by the Mattel company to write a book to correspond with their Ever After dolls and animated short. She agreed, and her book, Ever After High: The Storybook of Legends, debuted on the New York Times bestseller list (Children’s Middle Grade) at number 7 in October 2013. Subsequent titles in the Ever After series appeared in 2013: Raven Queen’s Story, Apple White’s Story, Ashlynn Ella’s Story, Madeline Hatter’s Story, Briar Beauty’s Story, The Tale of Two Sisters, and Hunter Huntsman’s Story. Titles in 2014 includeThe Unfairest of Them All.
Dangerous, a young adult novel, was released in 2014. Hale also penned Fire and Ice, the fourth volume in a multi-author fantasy series called Spirit Animals.
She penned two popular graphic novel memoirs Real Friends and Best Friends.
Austenland, Hale’s first book for adults, is now a major motion picture. She co-wrote the screenplay with director Jerusha Hess. A companion novel, Midnight in Austenland, is now in paperback. Her third book for adults, The Actor and the Housewife, was published in 2009. She has won numerous awards for all of her books.
Hale and her husband, Dean Hale, wrote two graphic novels, Rapunzel’s Revenge and Calamity Jack. Their first chapter book series, The Princess in Black (2014). They also penned two books about Marvel's Squirrel Girl; a young Wonder Woman book for DC entitled Diana, Princess of the Amazons. They live in Utah with their four children.
