In 2010, she served as a judge for the National Book Awards. Zarr was a regular contributor to Image Journal's Good Letters blog. In 2008, Zarr contributed to the young adult for Obama project started by fellow YA author Maureen Johnson. While the characters are Christian, the book was published for a mainstream audience and neither promotes nor criticizes organized religion. The original title comes from the hymn Amazing Grace written by John Newton. Inspired by the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart and Zarr's Christian roots, her third book, Once Was Lost (also published as What We Lost) addresses issues of faith, identity and home. Her first three manuscripts were never published, but after winning the Utah Arts Council prize for best unpublished young adult novel of 2003, she was able to find an agent who successfully sold Story of a Girl as the first of a two-book deal, to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Zarr grew up as part of a Jesus Movement church.

She has subsequently had nine novels published.īorn in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in San Francisco, she earned a degree in communications from San Francisco State University. Her first novel, Story of a Girl, was a 2007 National Book Award finalist. She was raised in San Francisco, and now lives in Salt Lake City, Utah with her husband. Sara Zarr (born October 3, 1970) is an American writer. It's about family, and letting them in, no matter how hard it can be.Young adult fiction, essays, short fiction It's about the people in life and how perfect they can seem on the outside, but are not so at heart. How she realizes that when something you love is tainted, you just have to paint over it to make it new again.

The Lucy Variations is a book that redefines you realizing yourself- it is one girl's struggle to reclaim her one true love, and her lessons along the way.

It is only when he comes in, does Lucy realize that the life she made for herself after quitting is not one that matters at all in the face of music! The book opens with Lucy performing CPR to her brother's piano teacher, who sadly passes away, leaving the Beck-Moreau family desperate for a new teacher (How can Gus be ready for the showcase that is only a few weeks away, if he has no teacher?) which is when they hire Will, a young, friendly, cute but married man, who wants to help Lucy become all she can be. Then after a horrible tragedy in her family, and a betrayal, she feels like she just can't handle it all anymore, and walks out of a showcase, bringing down the curtains on a show that shouldn't have ended, leaving her brother, Gus(tav), to bear the family burden. Lucy Beck-Moreau had it all - a well-to-do family, looks and even a career - sold out performances anywhere in the world from Prague to New York - her future was set - and all of this before she turned 14!

The lucy variations by sara zarr