About Lisa Wingate

American Author

Quick Facts

Nationality: American
Birth Year: 1964
Notable Works: The Book of Lost Friends, Before We Were Yours, The Story Keeper
Literary Period: Contemporary American literature
Genres: Contemporary Fiction, Historical Fiction
Cite

Lisa Wingate is an American writer and former journalist best known for her award-winning novel ‘Before We Were Yours.’

Lisa Wingate’s writing talent goes way back to when she was a little girl prodigy impressing her first-grade teacher with her writing skill. From there, Wingate has gone on and written more than 20 great books since 2001 (when she went into writing full-time).

Life Facts

  • Wingate was born in Germany in 1965
  • Her family later moved to Oklahoma, where she was raised
  • Her father was a computer engineer, and her mother was a teacher
  • Wingate went to Oklahoma State University, where she gained a B.A. in technical English
  • Married Sam in 1988 and has two sons with him.

Interesting Facts

  • At a young age, Wingate was already a good writer
  • Her teacher in first grade adored her writing skill and predicted that her name would appear in a popular magazine in the future.
  • After acquiring a B.A. in technical English, Wingate started her professional writing career in 2001 with her first novel titled ‘Tending Roses.’
  • She has written more than 30 books to date.
  • Thanks to her bestseller novel ‘Before We Were Yours,’ Wingate has racked up several awards – including the Oklahoma Book Award.

Famous Books by Lisa Wingate

Lisa Wingate has written more than 30 books in general. From novels to novellas – and even reviews, her works cut across several literary genres and have even won her a handful of awards, including bagging several prestigious nominations.

Among her many writings, Lisa Wingate has quite a few top-drawer books written and celebrated. Without any doubt, her bestseller ‘Before We Were Yours,’ published in 2017, is one of such books – but she has even more, and frankly admitted one time that the bestseller wasn’t even her personal best. Here is a highlight of some of Lisa Wingate’s finest.

‘Before We Were Yours’ is a historical fiction that follows the story of a young lawyer, Avery Stafford, and her journey to unite her family with its missing members – by uncovering a generation-old secret child abduction scandal perpetrated by the infamous Georgia Tann through her Memphis orphanage home.

‘The Book of Lost Friends’ is another one of Lisa Wingate’s books, also in the historical fiction genre, which tells the story of three young women – Lavinia, Juneau Jane, and Hannie – who enter a quest to unite with their family despite several odds – including post-war chaos and destructions – stacked against them.

‘Tending Roses’ is Lisa Wingate’s maiden novel, written in 2001, and inspired by the story her grandmother told to calm her little troubled child. It follows the story of Kate Bowman, her senile grandmother – Rose, Ben – her husband, and their toddler son. Following her getting maternity leave, Kate tries to convince her difficult grandma to move out of her Missouri home – where she has been staying for more than fifty years, alone.

That aside, at home, Kate and her husband struggle to manage their financial life with lots of bills going out, debts, and medicals. However, after she gets a hold of her grandma’s old journal and reads the stories therein, she has a new understanding of life and how even the little, negligible things matter.

Early Life and Education

Lisa Wingate was born in Germany in 1965 to her father, a computer engineer, and her mother, a teacher and an educator. Shortly afterward, the whole family moved to the United States to base in Oklahoma, California, where Lisa Wingate spent a big part of her childhood. As a child, Lisa Wingate was extremely talented and was top of her class in the aspect of basic creative writing. This skill was announced to her by a first-grade teacher, who, surprised at her early grasp of the art of storytelling and writing, told her she would one day appear on the cover of a magazine for her talents. She went on to study language at Oklahoma State University, bagging a B.A. in technical English. After graduation, Wingate had a short stint working as a freelance writer and then as a technical writer turn for the Technical department of Oklahoma State University.

Literary Career

Although she’s had to write a lot from a tender age, Lisa Wingate’s literary career kicked off fully in 2001 – when she published her first novel titled ‘Tending Roses,’ from there she’s gone on to write more than 30 books in total – including the evergreen ‘Before We Were Yours,’ which has won multiple awards and remain readers choice for a record time.

Literature by Lisa Wingate

Explore literature by Lisa Wingate below, created by the team at Book Analysis.

Before We Were Yours

Discover the secrets to learning and enjoying literature.

Join Book Analysis

Learn More