Nicholas Sparks is an American screenwriter and novelist, born on 31st December 1965 to Patrick Michael Sparks and Jill Emma Marie. He was the middle of three children. He was raised as a Catholic and he still follows the Catholic faith. He is very religious man; going to Church, Sunday school and confessions. His son is an altar boy. As a young kid he moved a lot as his father was continuing with his education. In 1974 his family finally settled in Fair Oaks in California where he graduated from Bella Vista High School as a valedictorian. For further studies he went to University of Notre Dame where he got a full track and field scholarship and graduated in 1988. He met the girl, who was later to become his wife, during the spring break of that year. They got married in 1989 and moved to Sacramento, California.
Sparks wrote his first novel in 1985 which never got published and another one in 1989, also not published. Sparks experimented with various careers trying to fit in but didn’t succeed. After trying his luck in publishing, law school, real estate and even waiting tables, he finally co wrote a novel named ‘A Lakota Journey to Happiness and Self-Understanding’ with Billy Mills Wokini. It sold about fifty thousand copies in the first year of being published. In 1992 he tried a business in pharmaceuticals and the next year moved to Greenville, SC. That was when he wrote his renowned novel ‘The Notebook’. This novel was to become a launch pad for Sparks. A literary agent Theresa Park discovered his novel from her agency and offered to represent him. In 1995 Sparks had one million dollars in cash for ‘The Note Book’ from the famous Time Warner Book Group. After being published in 1996, ‘The Notebook’ made the best seller list of The New York Times instantly. Following this successful novel were exceptional writings one after the other out of which six were made into film adaptations. In 1999 ‘Message in a Bottle’, in 2002 ‘ A Walk to Remember, ‘The Note Book’ in 2004, ‘Nights in Rodanthe’ in 2008, then in 2010 ‘Dear John’ and ‘The Last Song’ .
Nicholas Sparks has written 16 novels till 2010. His last novel till now ‘The Safe Haven’ was published on 14th September 2010. His books ‘The Best of Me’ and also in the list ‘The Safe Haven’ are made into films and released in 2011. Another one of his book ‘The Lucky One’ is currently being filmed and will be released some time in 2012.
Currently Nicholas Spark is living with his wife and five children in North Carolina. Being a religious man and firm believer in God, Sparks constantly contributes to various charities and schools. He also promotes writers by funding different scholarships, intern programs and fellowships. Sparks also started ‘MFA’ that is a creative writing program at the university he studied in (University of Notre Dame). He donated more than ten million dollars for the building of a Christian International School.
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