Lisa Wingate is the #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of Before We Were Yours, which remained on the New York Times bestseller list for more than two years and has sold over three million copies. She has written more than 30 novels and co-authored the nonfiction Before and After with journalist Judy Christie. Wingate’s books have been translated into over forty languages and have appeared on bestseller lists worldwide. Shelterwood (2024) marks her thirty-third release.
Wingate is a Goodreads Choice Award winner, an Oklahoma Book Award finalist, and a Southern Book Prize winner. Americans for More Civility, a kindness watchdog organization, selected Wingate as a recipient of the National Civics Award, which celebrates public figures who work to promote greater kindness and civility in American life. “Booklist” summed up her work by saying, “Lisa Wingate is, quite simply, a master storyteller.”
She was inspired to become a writer by a first-grade teacher who said she expected to see Lisa’s name in a magazine one day. Wingate also entertained childhood dreams of being an Olympic gymnast and winning the National Finals Rodeo but was stalled by a mental block against backflips on the balance beam and by parents who stubbornly refused to finance a rodeo career. She was lucky enough to marry into a big family of tall tale enthusiasts who never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Wingate lives in Texas and Colorado with her family and her cuddly teddy bear of a dog, Huckleberry. One of her favorite things about being a writer is connecting with people, both real and imaginary.
