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Sarah Allen
Goodreads Author
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Member Since
November 2009
URL
https://www.goodreads.com/sarahthewriter
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What Stars Are Made Of
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published
2020
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2 editions
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Breathing Underwater
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published
2021
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8 editions
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The Nightmare House
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Monster Tree
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* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.
Something happened for the first time in 10 years (and I went insane)
In July, something happened that hasn’t happened for over ten years, and I went insane about it.
First, backing up...
I started work on What Stars Are Made Of, my debut, in my MFA program in 2016. I worked on that for a couple years, and once it was published, I had a solid string of other books to work on, including books that ended up published and books that weren’t. My last book, Monster Tree ca
Read more of this blog post »
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Fatal Glitch: Let's Play a Game
by Eliot Schrefer (Goodreads Author)
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The Correspondent
by Virginia Evans (Goodreads Author) Goodreads Choice Awards Nominee in Readers' Favorite Fiction, Readers' Favorite Debut Novel, Readers' Favorite Audiobook |
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“I wondered if ideas were born the same way stars are, starting off small and collecting space clouds and dust until they have enough to burst open.”
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“People—college people—kept looking at me,
but I barely noticed. And with strangers, I’m not so great at knowing what their facial expressions mean anyway, so I pretended they were all very nice. They probably were.”
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but I barely noticed. And with strangers, I’m not so great at knowing what their facial expressions mean anyway, so I pretended they were all very nice. They probably were.”
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“Real stars don’t have five points like the cartoon stars, though. They’re balls, big burning balls of fire. I wonder if we made up those five-pointed stars because then it looks like stars have a head and two arms and two legs, like we do.”
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Topics Mentioning This Author
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nothing But Readi...: New 2 U Authors: 2020 | 111 | 485 | Dec 30, 2020 05:48PM | |
| Ultimate Popsugar...: Week 39: 9/24 - 9/30 | 142 | 128 | Oct 11, 2021 01:31PM | |
| The Lost Challenges: Days of The Week Spell Out | 328 | 180 | Jul 25, 2026 09:41AM |
“…the primary trait of young adult literature is that the author’s emphasis is on plot and character and not on his own brilliance. And because few people talk about whether a young adult work is commercial or literary; the two are still in sync, and everyone’s benefitting.”
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“We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.”
― Refusing Heaven
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.”
― Refusing Heaven
“Walk openly, Marian used to say. Love even the threat and the pain, feel yourself fully alive, cast a bold shadow, accept, accept. What we call evil is only a groping towards good, part of the trial and error by which we move toward the perfected consciousness…
God is kind? Life is good? Nature never did betray the heart that loved her? Why the reward she received for living intensely and generously and trying to die with dignity? Why the horror at the bridge her last clear sight of earth?...I do not accept, I am not reconciled. But one thing she did. She taught me the stupidity of the attempt to withdraw and be free of trouble and harm...
She said, “You wondered what was in whale’s milk. Now you know. Think of the force down there, just telling things to get born, just to be!”
I had had no answer for her then. Now I might have one. Yes, think of it, I might say. And think how random and indiscriminate it is, think how helplessly we must submit, think how impossible it is to control or direct it. Think how often beauty and delicacy and grace are choked out by weeds. Think how endless and dubious is the progress from weed to flower.
Even alive, she never convinced me with her advocacy of biological perfectionism. She never persuaded me to ignore, or look upon as merely hard pleasures, the evil that I felt in every blight and smut and pest in my garden- that I felt, for that matter, squatting like a toad on my own heart. Think of the force of life, yes, but think of the component of darkness in it. One of the things that’s in whale’s milk is the promise of pain and death.
And so? Admitting what is so obvious, what then? Would I wipe Marion Catlin out of my unperfected consciousness if I could? Would I forgo the pleasure of her company to escape the bleakness of her loss? Would I go back to my own formula, which was twilight sleep, to evade the pain she brought with her?
Not for a moment. And so even in the gnashing of my teeth, I acknowledge my conversion. It turns out to be for me as I once told her it would be for her daughter. I shall be richer all my life for this sorrow.”
― All the Little Live Things
God is kind? Life is good? Nature never did betray the heart that loved her? Why the reward she received for living intensely and generously and trying to die with dignity? Why the horror at the bridge her last clear sight of earth?...I do not accept, I am not reconciled. But one thing she did. She taught me the stupidity of the attempt to withdraw and be free of trouble and harm...
She said, “You wondered what was in whale’s milk. Now you know. Think of the force down there, just telling things to get born, just to be!”
I had had no answer for her then. Now I might have one. Yes, think of it, I might say. And think how random and indiscriminate it is, think how helplessly we must submit, think how impossible it is to control or direct it. Think how often beauty and delicacy and grace are choked out by weeds. Think how endless and dubious is the progress from weed to flower.
Even alive, she never convinced me with her advocacy of biological perfectionism. She never persuaded me to ignore, or look upon as merely hard pleasures, the evil that I felt in every blight and smut and pest in my garden- that I felt, for that matter, squatting like a toad on my own heart. Think of the force of life, yes, but think of the component of darkness in it. One of the things that’s in whale’s milk is the promise of pain and death.
And so? Admitting what is so obvious, what then? Would I wipe Marion Catlin out of my unperfected consciousness if I could? Would I forgo the pleasure of her company to escape the bleakness of her loss? Would I go back to my own formula, which was twilight sleep, to evade the pain she brought with her?
Not for a moment. And so even in the gnashing of my teeth, I acknowledge my conversion. It turns out to be for me as I once told her it would be for her daughter. I shall be richer all my life for this sorrow.”
― All the Little Live Things
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message 5:
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Wanda (The Watered Soul)
Oct 19, 2013 06:47PM
Check out ShelfFlip.com. They tell you how much your books are worth and help you sell them quickly and for the best price. All automatically from your Goodreads list: www.ShelfFlip.com
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Check out ShelfFlip.com. They tell you how much your books are worth and help you sell them quickly and for the best price. All automatically from your Goodreads list: www.ShelfFlip.com
Nice to know another reader who appreciates Jane Eyre. :^)
Happy New Year, Sarah. May your 2010 be filled with good reading and writing!
Thank you Sarah for the friend invite. I really liked your angle with the Pet Diaries. The dog and the cat both had charrrming personalities! I think Pet Diaries would make for a good book =)