Biography

Short version:

Courtney Summers lives and writes in Ontario, Canada. She is the author of 2009 CYBIL award-winner Cracked Up to Be, 2011 White Pine Honor Book and 2011 YALSA Top 10 Quick Pick Some Girls Are, Fall for Anything and This is Not a Test, which has been optioned by Sony for a television movie. Her fifth book, All the Rage, will be released in 2014.

Long version:

Hello! My name is Courtney Summers!

I was born in Belleville, Ontario, Canada in 1986 and currently reside in a small town not far from there. When I was five, I wanted to be a “singer on Sunday and a geologist on Mondays” because at the time, my parents owned a lapidary business that sent us to gem and mineral shows all over the province and I believed I could sing.

When I was around nine, I was so moved after seeing my father’s production of Man of La Mancha, I wanted to inspire people the way I’d been inspired. I gave up my geology and music-based dreams and decided I was meant to be an actor, and then a director, screenwriter and cinematographer. At 14, I became Vice President of my town’s local theatre guild. Also I dropped out of high school.

I used the time I would have been in high school, and then college, to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I knew I wanted to tell stories, but I wasn’t sure how I wanted to tell them. I gradually moved away from Hollywood-type ambitions to explore photography and revisit music. I liked these mediums well enough, but they weren’t a perfect fit. At eighteen, I decided to write a novel. As soon as I started, everything clicked into place.

CRACKED UP TO BE was my fourth written novel and my first to be published. I was twenty-one when it sold and twenty-two when it hit shelves. Since then, I’ve published three more books (SOME GIRLS ARE, FALL FOR ANYTHING and THIS IS NOT A TEST) with another, ALL THE RAGE, due out early 2014.

I am happiest when I’m working so I do that a lot, but when I’m not working I like to play video games, watch horror movies, obsess over the zombie apocalypse, read good books and eat good food. But who doesn’t? I hope it’s not you, or we probably won’t get along.