Stephenie Meyer, American author and film producer
Stephenie Meyer (; née Morgan; born December 24, 1973) is an American novelist and film producer. She is best known for writing the vampire romance series Twilight, which has sold over 100 million copies, with translations into 37 different languages. Meyer was the bestselling author of 2008 and 2009 in the U.S., having sold over 29 million books in 2008, and 26.5 million in 2009. Meyer received the 2009 Children's Book of the Year award from the British Book Awards for Breaking Dawn, the Twilight series finale.
An avid young reader, she attended Brigham Young University, marrying at the age of twenty-one before graduating with a degree in English in 1997. Having no prior experience as an author, she conceived the idea for the Twilight series in a dream. Influenced by the work of Jane Austen and William Shakespeare, she wrote Twilight soon thereafter. After many rejections, Little, Brown and Company offered her a $750,000 three-book deal which led to a four-book series, several spin-off novels and novellas, and a series of commercially successful film adaptations. Aside from young adult novels, Meyer has ventured into adult novels with The Host (2008) and The Chemist (2016). Meyer has worked in film production and cofounded production company Fickle Fish Films. Meyer produced both parts of Breaking Dawn and two other novel adaptations.
Meyer's membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) shaped her novels: there are no drinking, smoking, or explicit sex scenes, and the characters Edward and Bella in her Twilight series remain sexually abstinent until marriage. Themes consistent with her religion, including agency, mortality, temptation, and eternal life, are prominent in her work. Meyer's work has been criticized for her overly-simplistic writing style, and feminists assert that the novel encourages traditional gender roles and that furthermore, Bella and Edward's romance has signs of an abusive relationship. Despite this criticism, Meyer considers herself a feminist. Meyer's stories have also received praise and she has acquired a fan following.
Meyer was included on Time magazine's list of the "100 Most Influential People in 2008", and was included in the Forbes Celebrity 100 list of the world's most powerful celebrities in 2009, with her annual earnings exceeding $50 million.
1973Dec, 24
Stephenie Meyer
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Events on 1973
- 20Jul
Bruce Lee
Bruce Lee, the famous Chinese actor and martial-arts expert, dies in Los Angeles at age 32 from a brain edema possibly caused by a reaction to a prescription painkiller. - 15Aug
Cambodia
Vietnam War: The United States bombing of Cambodia ends. - 22Aug
Salvador Allende
The Congress of Chile votes in favour of a resolution condemning President Salvador Allende's government and demands that he resign or else be unseated through force and new elections. - 17Oct
1973 oil crisis
OPEC imposes an oil embargo against a number of Western countries, considered to have helped Israel in its war against Egypt and Syria. - 4Nov
1973 oil crisis
The Netherlands experiences the first Car-Free Sunday caused by the 1973 oil crisis. Highways are used only by cyclists and roller skaters.