Shannon Hale

Shannon Hale (born 1974) is an American writer of fantasy novels and graphic novels for children and young adults, best known for The Goose Girl, the Newbery Honor book Princess Academy and the Princess in Black series. She was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on 26 January 1974, graduated in English from the University of Utah and took a master's degree in creative writing at the University of Montana.

Her first novel, The Goose Girl, a retelling of the Grimm fairy tale, was published by Bloomsbury in the United States on 8 August 2003 after nine rejections, with a British hardback from Bloomsbury following that November. It began the Books of Bayern, continued in Enna Burning, River Secrets and Forest Born. Princess Academy (Bloomsbury, June 2005) received a 2006 Newbery Honor and was followed by Palace of Stone (2012) and The Forgotten Sisters (2015). Her first novel for adults, Austenland (2007), was filmed in 2013. With her husband Dean Hale she wrote the graphic novel Rapunzel's Revenge (2008), the Princess in Black books illustrated by LeUyen Pham, and Marvel's Squirrel Girl novels. Real Friends (2017), a graphic memoir of her school years drawn by Pham, was followed by Best Friends.

For collectors, the first printings of The Goose Girl are the natural starting point, as her debut and the opening of the Bayern series; the American edition came first (Bloomsbury Children's Books, August 2003) and the London edition three months later. The Goose Girl won the Josette Frank Award, and Princess Academy, her Newbery Honor title, is the other key first edition.