By Ellen Madden
Nicholas Charles Sparks is an American romantic fiction and drama screenwriter, producer, and novelist. Sparks was born in Nebraska, United States, on the thirty-first of December 1965. During his life, he has published two non-fiction books and twenty-three New York Times best-selling novels.
In 1990, Nicholas Sparks and Billy Mills co-authored A Lakota Journey to Happiness and Self-Understanding, dealing with spiritual methods and views, which sold fifty thousand copies.
In 1995, during the writing process of The Notebook, a literary agent, Theresa Park, paid a million-dollar advance. It was published in October 1996 and remained The New York Times bestseller for fifty-six weeks. Due to the remarkable success, Sparks released a sequel called The Wedding in September 2003.
Eleven of his novels were adapted into films. From 1999 to 2010, they included Message in a Bottle, The Notebook, Dear John, A Walk to Remember, Nights in Rodanthe, and The Last Song. Other movies released between 2012 and 2016 are The Lucky One, The Best of Me, The Longest Ride, Safe Haven, and The Choice. At First Sight and True Believer were sold as theatre scripts. The latest film adaptations were released between 2020 and 2022. These included The Return, The Wish, and Dreamland.
Other Nicholas Sparks novels are A Bend in the Road, The Guardian, The Rescue, Two by Two, Every Breath, See Me, and Counting Miracles. In April 2004, Nicholas Sparks co-wrote a non-fiction book with Michael Earl Sparks called Three Weeks with My Brother.