Veronica Roth is from a Chicago suburb. She studied creative writing at Northwestern University.
Unlike most authors, Veronica Roth had a relatively quick journey to literary stardom, with her debut novel Divergent landing her on the New York Times best sellers list at the tender age of 22. Roth attended Minnesota’s Carleton College for one year before transferring to Northwestern and graduating from the university’s prestigious writing program. Literary agent Joanna Stampfel-Volpe of Nancy Coffey Literary recognized potential in Roth and signed her to a contract, securing a publishing deal with HarperCollins only four days after sending out the Divergent manuscript.
Told from the perspective of 16-year-old protagonist Beatrice Prior, Divergent chronicles a dystopian Chicago in which society groups citizens into five factions according to the person’s beliefs, passions, and loyalties. There are 3 books in the series: DIVERGENT (Katherine Tegen Books, May 2011) and INSURGENT (May 2012), ALLEGIANT(October 22, 2013).
Movie Rights for the Divergent movie belong to Summit Entertainment and Lionsgate and the first one in the series came out in March 2014.
Veronica spends endless hours browsing Wikipedia in her pajamas as she eats corn flakes. (Or some other kind of bland breakfast cereal.)
Q: What faction would you choose?
A: “I used to say that I would choose Dauntless, but I’ve recently come to believe that’s just wishful thinking (who doesn’t want to think they’d be able to jump off a moving train and zipline off the Hancock building?). Really, when it comes to my aptitude and my affinity for a peaceful life, I think I would choose Abnegation. (I also tend to gravitate toward the factions/groups that no one else gravitates toward, so that could be part of the reason.) Also, selflessness makes you brave, right? So I’m really just covering all the bases.”
