Marti Leimbach

Born in Washington, DC, Marti Leimbach worked as a busgirl, a cook at McDonalds, a telephone operator, barmaid and an office temp before being accepted to Harvard University to study English and American Literature.

Upon graduating in 1986, she won the Regent’s fellowship at the University of California Irvine’s Creative Writing Program where she wrote her first novel, Dying Young. Dying Young was widely translated and became an international bestseller. It also served as the basis for the major motion picture of the same name, starring Julia Roberts.

Marti moved to England in 1991 after meeting her husband at a bookshop in London. She has since written four additional novels, including Daniel Isn’t Talking, which reflects in part her experience as the mother of a child with autism.