RyeGPT People of Note: Author Jennifer Donnelly
RyeGPT People of Note is a series highlighting individuals who have a connection to the City of Rye. In the series we ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT to prepare a biography and explain the individual’s connection to Rye.
We welcome your feedback on this series – the use of artificial intelligence, the accuracy and usefulness of each article and your assistance in understanding other pertinent insights related to the person’s connection to Rye.
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Jennifer Donnelly, born on August 16, 1963, in Port Chester, New York, is an acclaimed American author renowned for her contributions to young adult and historical fiction. Her paternal great-grandparents emigrated from Dublin, Ireland, to New York State, settling in the Adirondack region. Donnelly’s grandmother worked at a hotel on Big Moose Lake, which later became the setting for her novel A Northern Light. Her childhood was divided between Rye and Port Leyden, New York.
Donnelly graduated from Rye High School and pursued higher education at the University of Rochester, where she double-majored in English Literature and European History, graduating magna cum laude. She also attended Birkbeck College, University of London.
Her literary career began with the publication of the children’s picture book Humble Pie in 2002, illustrated by Stephen Gammell. That same year, she released The Tea Rose, the first installment in a trilogy set in the late 19th-century East End of London, intertwining fictional narratives with historical events. The sequels, The Winter Rose (2008) and The Wild Rose (2011), continue this expansive saga.
In 2003, Donnelly published A Northern Light (titled A Gathering Light in the UK), a novel inspired by the 1906 murder of Grace Brown in the Adirondack Mountains. The book received widespread acclaim, earning the 2003 Carnegie Medal and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature. In 2015, Time magazine included it in its list of the 100 Best Young Adult Books of All Time.
Connection to Rye, New York
Her eNotes biography credits her family’s rich oral traditions and her mother’s love of books with her passion for storytelling. Her childhood in Lewis County also influenced her narratives, as its environment was used as the backdrop of A Northern Light.
Throughout her career, Donnelly has continued to produce notable works, including Revolution (2010), which juxtaposes the lives of two teenage girls from different eras, and the Waterfire Saga (2014–2016), a fantasy series published by Disney. Her recent novels, Stepsister (2019) and Poisoned (2020), offer fresh takes on classic fairy tales.
Today, Jennifer Donnelly resides in the Hudson Valley, New York, with her husband and daughter.
