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Nicholas Charles Sparks (born December 31, 1965) is an American novelist, screenwriter, and philanthropist. He has published twenty-three novels and two non-fiction books, some of which have been New York Times bestsellers, with over 115 million copies sold worldwide in more than 50 languages.[1]

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Nicholas Sparks
Sparks signing autographs in 2006
Born	Nicholas Charles Sparks (1965-12-31) December 31, 1965 (age 56) Omaha, Nebraska, United States
Occupation	Novelist screenwriter producer
Alma mater	University of Notre Dame
Genre	Romantic fiction Romantic drama
Spouse	Cathy Cote ​ ​ (m. 1989; div. 2015)​
Children	5
Website
nicholassparks.com

Eleven of his novels have been adapted to film, including The Choice, The Longest Ride, The Best of Me, Safe Haven (on all of which he served as a producer), The Lucky One, Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, Nights in Rodanthe, Dear John, The Last Song, and The Notebook.

Sparks lives in North Carolina, where he contributes to a variety of local and national charities. He also sets many of his novels in that area. In 2011, he launched the Nicholas Sparks Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit committed to improving cultural and international understanding through global education experiences for students of all ages.[2]

Early life

Nicholas Sparks was born on December 31, 1965, in Omaha, Nebraska, to Patrick Michael Sparks, a future professor of business, and Jill Emma Marie Sparks (née Thoene), a homemaker and an optometrist's assistant. Nicholas was the middle of three children, with an older brother, Michael Earl "Micah" Sparks (born 1964), and a younger sister, Danielle "Dana" Sparks Lewis (1966–2000), who died at the age of 33 from a brain tumor. Sparks has said that she was the inspiration for the main character Jamie Sullivan in his novel A Walk to Remember. Sparks was raised in the Roman Catholic faith,[3] and is of German, Czech, English, and Irish ancestry. He and his ex-wife are Catholics and are raising their children in the Catholic faith.[4]

His father pursued graduate studies at University of Minnesota and University of Southern California, one reason for his family's frequent moves. By the time Sparks turned eight, he had lived in Watertown, Minnesota; Inglewood, California; Playa Del Rey, California and his mother's hometown of Grand Island, Nebraska for a year, during which his parents were separated. By 1974, his father had become a professor of business at California State University, Sacramento, and the family settled in Fair Oaks, California.

The family remained there through Sparks' high school days, and in 1984, he graduated as the valedictorian of Bella Vista High School, where he learned to slam dunk. After being offered a full sports scholarship for track and field at the University of Notre Dame, Sparks accepted and enrolled, majoring in business finance. In 1988, while on spring break, he met his future wife, Cathy Cote of New Hampshire, and then concluded his early academic work by graduating from Notre Dame magna cum laude. Sparks and Cote were married on July 22, 1989, and they eventually settled in New Bern, North Carolina. Prior to those milestones, however, Sparks had begun writing in his early college years.

Career

Early career

Sparks started writing at his mother's suggestion:

'"Your problem is that you're bored. You need to find something to do..." Then she looked at me and said the words that would eventually change my life: "Write a book." Until that moment, I had never considered writing. Granted, I read all the time, but actually sitting down and coming up with a story on my own? ...I was nineteen years old and had become an accidental author.[5]

In 1985, while at home for the summer between his freshman and sophomore years at Notre Dame, Sparks penned his first, never published, novel, The Passing. He wrote another in 1989, also unpublished, The Royal Murders.

After college, Sparks both sought work with publishers and applied to law school, but was rejected in both attempts. He spent the next three years in various occupations, including real estate appraisal, waiting tables, selling dental products by phone, and starting his own manufacturing business.

In 1990, Sparks co-wrote a book with Billy Mills entitled Wokini: A Lakota Journey to Happiness and Self-Understanding,[6] a nonfiction book about the influence of Lakota spiritual beliefs and practices. The book was published by Feather Publishing, Random House, and Hay House, and sold some 50,000 copies in its first year after release.[7]

In 1994, while working in pharmaceutical sales, Sparks began a novel in his spare time, The Notebook.[8] In 1995, he was discovered by literary agent Theresa Park, who picked The Notebook out of her agency's slush pile, fell in love with it, and offered to represent him. In October 1995, Park secured a $1 million advance for The Notebook from Time Warner Book Group. Published in October 1996, the novel made The New York Times best-seller list in its first week of release and eventually spent fifty-six weeks there.

Accomplishments

Including The Notebook, fifteen of Sparks's novels have been No. 1 New York Times Best Sellers, and all of his books have been both New York Times and international bestsellers. Eleven of his novels have been adapted as films: Message in a Bottle (1999), A Walk to Remember (2002), The Notebook (2004), Nights in Rodanthe (2008), Dear John (2010), The Last Song (2010), The Lucky One (2012), Safe Haven (2013), The Best of Me (2014), The Longest Ride (2015), and The Choice (2016). He has also sold the screenplay adaptations of True Believer and At First Sight. In September 2020, Sparks published his twenty-first novel The Return.

Sparks has frequently drawn inspiration from his own experiences.[9]

Personal life

Sparks and his then-wife Cathy lived together in New Bern, North Carolina, with their three sons and twin daughters until 2014. On January 6, 2015, Sparks announced that he and Cathy had amicably separated. They subsequently divorced.[10] Sparks still resides in New Bern.

Philanthropy

Sparks donated nearly $900,000[11] for a new, all-weather tartan track to New Bern High School along with his time to help coach the New Bern High School track team and a local club track team as a volunteer head coach.[12]

Sparks contributes to other local and national charities, including the Creative Writing Program (MFA) at the University of Notre Dame by funding scholarships, internships, and annual fellowships. The Nicholas Sparks Foundation, launched by Sparks in 2012, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit committed to improving cultural and international understanding through global education experiences for students of all ages was launched in 2011. Between the foundation, and the personal gifts of the Sparks family, more than $15 million have been distributed to deserving charities, scholarship programs, and projects.[13] In 2008, Entertainment Weekly reported that Sparks and his then-wife had donated "close to $10 million" to start a private school, The Epiphany School of Global Studies.[14][15]

Published works

Novels

Nonfiction

• Wokini: A Lakota Journey to Happiness and Self-Understanding (1990), Nicholas Sparks and Billy Mills. ISBN 978-0-9627943-0-8
• Three Weeks with My Brother (April 2004), Nicholas Sparks and Micah Sparks. ISBN 978-1-58621-643-6

Adaptations in other media

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Film

Year	Film	Director	Cast	Rotten Tomatoes	Budget	Worldwide gross
1999	Message in a Bottle	Luis Mandoki	Kevin Costner and Robin Wright	32%	$30 million [18]	$118,880,016
2002	A Walk to Remember	Adam Shankman	Shane West and Mandy Moore	27%	$12 million	$47,494,916
2004	The Notebook	Nick Cassavetes	Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams	53%	$29 million	$115,603,229
2008	Nights in Rodanthe	George C. Wolfe	Richard Gere and Diane Lane	30%	$30 million	$84,375,061
2010	Dear John	Lasse Hallström	Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried	29%	$25 million	$114,977,104
2010	The Last Song	Julie Anne Robinson	Liam Hemsworth and Miley Cyrus	21%	$20 million	$89,041,656
2012	The Lucky One	Scott Hicks	Zac Efron and Taylor Schilling	21%	$25 million	$99,357,138
2013	Safe Haven	Lasse Hallström	Josh Duhamel and Julianne Hough	13%	$28 million	$97,594,140
2014	The Best of Me	Michael Hoffman	James Marsden and Michelle Monaghan	12%	$26 million	$35,926,213
2015	The Longest Ride	George Tillman Jr.	Scott Eastwood and Britt Robertson	31%	$34 million	$62,944,815
2016	The Choice	Ross Katz	Benjamin Walker and Teresa Palmer	11%	$10 million	$23,420,878
Total					$288 million	$889,615,166

TV

Year	Series	Credit	Director/ showrunner	Network	Rotten Tomatoes
2014	Deliverance Creek[19][20]	Executive producer	Jon Amiel	Lifetime	50% (6 reviews)[21]
TBA	Untitled The Notebook follow-up[19][20]	Characters based on The Notebook	TBA	The CW	TBD

References

External links

• Official website
• Nicholas Sparks at IMDb

На других языках

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- [en] Nicholas Sparks

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[ru] Спаркс, Николас

Николас Чарльз Спаркс (англ. Nicholas Charles Sparks; 31 декабря 1965, Омаха, Небраска, США) — всемирно известный американский писатель, автор романов-бестселлеров на темы христианства, любви, трагедии, судьбы и человеческих отношений. На его счету двадцать один изданный роман. По самым скромным подсчетам, во всём мире продано около 80 миллионов экземпляров книг Спаркса (из них более 50 миллионов — в США) на 45 языках. У Николаса Спаркса пять детей от бывшей жены Кэти Кот. Николас живёт в Нью-Берн, в штате Северная Каролина.

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