Sara Gruen

Sara Gruen (born 1969 in Vancouver ) is a Canadian-American author. She is a 2007 recipient of the Alex Award for young adult literature.

Early life and education Gruen was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. She grew up in London, Ontario. and graduated with a degree in English literature. She continued to live in Ottawa for 10 years after graduation. When she was laid off two years later, she decided to try writing fiction. Gruen is an animal lover; both her first novel, Riding Lessons, and her second novel, Flying Changes, involve horses. Gruen's third book, the 1930s circus drama Water for Elephants (2006), was initially turned down by her publisher at the time, Avon Books; as a result, Gruen found another publisher, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. It went on to become a New York Times bestseller and is now available in 45 languages and as a 2011 film adaptation starring Reese Witherspoon, Christoph Waltz, and Robert Pattinson. Her fourth novel, Ape House, centers around the Bonobo ape Murdoch is serving a life sentence without parole for murder. His letter praised Water for Elephants and also described the circumstances of his case. He told Gruen that former chief justice Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit "described my (wrongful) conviction as 'a truly spectacular miscarriage of justice.'" Murdoch's conviction was upheld by the California Court of Appeal despite Kozinski's doubts that he had received a fair trial. Gruen began to correspond with Murdoch and took up the cause of attempting to overturn his conviction, believing Murdoch's prosecution to have depended on a coerced confession by witness Dino Dinardo. She hired attorneys and investigators at her own expense, including former Los Angeles District Attorney's Office prosecutor Robin Sax, and numerous pets, including horses Tia and Fancy.