Sarah J. Maas

Maas was raised in New York City by her adoptive parents, a Catholic mother and Jewish father. Though she was raised Jewish, she didn’t fully embrace the faith until beginning her undergraduate studies at Hamilton College, where she met her now-husband, who was president of a campus Jewish group. As a teenager, Maas loved writing and was drawn to fantasy. She began publishing short stories and chapters on the site FictionPress, and her work quickly gained immense popularity. In 2008, she pulled her work from the site, planning to seek traditional publication. She was successful: Her first novel, Throne of Glass, was published in 2012, with it and the next two books in the series developing directly from the drafts originally published on FictionPress. However, she gained immense prominence after A Court of Thrones and Roses was published in 2015, though the book and subsequent installments in the series truly took off on TikTok’s BookTok during the COVID-19 pandemic. Maas lives in New York City with her husband and two children.