Meggin Patricia Cabot (born February 1, 1967) is an American novelist. She has written and published over 80 novels of young adult and adult fiction and is best known for her young adult series The Princess Diaries, which was later adapted by Walt Disney Pictures into two feature films. Cabot has been the recipient of numerous book awards, including the New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age, the American Library Association Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers, the Tennessee Volunteer State TASL Book Award, the Book Sense Pick, the Evergreen Young Adult Book Award, and the IRA/CBC Young Adult Choice. She has also had number-one New York Times bestsellers, and more than 25 million copies of her books are in print across the world.
Early life and career
Meggin Patricia Cabot was born on February 1, 1967, in Bloomington, Indiana. After she graduated from Indiana University, Cabot moved to New York City, with the original aim of pursuing a career as an illustrator. However, she soon quit this job and started working as an assistant manager of the freshman dormitory at New York University.
Personal life
Meg Cabot married financial writer and poet Benjamin D. Egnatz on April 1, 1993. Their wedding date, April Fool's Day, was a deliberate play on her husband's belief that only fools get married in the first place. The wedding was an elopement in Italy. Her novel Every Boy's Got One is loosely based on her elopement.
She has cats, Henrietta (a one-eyed cat; 1993–2013), and Gem, about whom she often blogs.
After living in Indiana, California, New York, and France, she now lives in Key West, Florida with her husband.
Publications
Children's novels
Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls
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!Notes
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| 2008 || Moving Day||
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| 2008 || The New Girl ||
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| 2009 || Best Friends and Drama Queens||
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| 2010 || Stage Fright ||
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| 2011 || Glitter Girls and the Great Fake Out||
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|2012
|Blast From the Past
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The Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls series is about 9-year-old Allie Finkle, who has to contend with moving from her suburban home to an old Victorian house, starting a new school, and making new friends.
Young adult
The Princess Diaries series
The Princess Diaries series is the most critically acclaimed series written by Meg Cabot and has been published in more than 40 countries. The first book in the series was published in October 2000. The series spent 48 weeks on the New York Times Children's Series Best Sellers List, and was sold to publishers in 37 foreign countries.
In 2001 and 2004, respectively, the series was brought to the big screen by Walt Disney Pictures as The Princess Diaries and The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement starring Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews.
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| 2003 || Volume IV: Princess in Waiting|| The Princess Diaries: Mia Goes Fourth
|#1 on NY Times Best Seller List
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| 2003 || Volume IV and 1/2: Project Princess ||
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| 2004 || Volume V: Princess in Pink|| The Princess Diaries: Give Me Five
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| 2005 || Volume VI: Princess in Training|| The Princess Diaries: Sixsational
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| 2004 || Volume VI and 1/2: The Princess Present ||
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| 2006 || Volume VII: Party Princess || The Princess Diaries: Seventh Heaven
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|2006
|Volume VII and 1/2: Sweet Sixteen Princess
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|2006
|Volume VII and 3/4: Valentine Princess
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|2006
|Volume VIII: Princess on the Brink
|The Princess Diaries: After Eight
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|2007
|Volume IX: Princess Mia
|The Princess Diaries: To The Nines
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|2009
|Volume X: Forever Princess
|The Princess Diaries: Ten Out Of Ten
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|2015
|Volume XI: Royal Wedding
|The Princess Diaries: Royal Weddling
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|2023
|Volume XII: The Quarantine Princess
|The Quarantine Princess Diaries
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Illustrated by Chelsey McLaren:
- Princess Lessons (March 2003) All author proceeds from the novel, which was printed on 100% recycled paper, go to Greenpeace.
The Mediator series
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!Year To this end, she can see, touch, communicate with, hit, punch, and 'kick ghost butt' when she must. The series begins just after Suze's widowed mother marries Andy Ackerman, so Suze has moved to Carmel, California, to live in an old house complete with three stepbrothers. To make matters worse, her bedroom is haunted by an attractive male ghost named Jesse de Silva, who died 150 years earlier. Suze remembers that back in New York, a fortune teller had told her that she was a mediator (which proved correct) and that she would only fall in love once, but it would last for an eternity.
In December 2010, HarperTeen reprinted an omnibus edition titled The Mediator: Shadowland and Ninth Key.
1-800-WHERE-R-U series
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!Year The first four books take place over less than a year and chronicle her attempts to help missing children while trying to avoid the scrutiny of the federal government. The fifth book, published four years after the fourth book, picks up the storyline after Jess has turned 19. Over the course of the book, Jess is romantically involved with Rob Wilkins, a boy from the wrong side of the tracks.
The first four books were originally written under Cabot's pseudonym, Jenny Carroll. The books were re-released in 2004 under Cabot's real name. Cabot was unhappy with the discontinuation; she stated that she wanted to take the series up to eight books. Her current publishing house agreed to publish one more installment. Missing You was released in December 2006 and that was the end of the series.
The 1-800-WHERE-R-YOU series was the basis for the television show Missing, which aired on the Lifetime cable network for three seasons from 2003 to 2006.
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|2005
|Ready or Not: An All-American Girl Novel
|#1 NY Times Best Seller
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The series revolves around Samantha Madison, a Washington, D.C. native, who, while skipping her after-school art class, saves the life of the president, and becomes a national hero. The two books are about her rise to fame and her love life with the president's son, David, who appears to want to take their relationship to the next level in the second book. There is also a short story called "Another All-American Girl" in the anthology Our White House: Looking In, Looking Out, about Samantha's experience in the White House.
The Avalon High film was shown on Disney Channel on November 12, 2010. Britt Robertson played Ally (Elaine), while Gregg Sulkin played Will.
The Airhead trilogy
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Stand-alone young adult novels
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The Little Bridge Series
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Historical romance novels
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Short stories
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|August 2003
|"Girl's Guide to New York through the Movies"
|Metropolis Found: New York is Book Country 25th Anniversary Collection
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|October 2003
|"Kate the Great"
|Thirteen: Thirteen Stories That Capture the Agony and Ecstasy of Being Thirteen
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|January 2004
|"You Rock, Jen Greenley"
|The short story collection Short Stories
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|September 2004
|"Party Planner"
|The adult short story collection Girls' Night In
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|August 2005
|"Connie "Hunter" Williams, Psychic Teacher"
|The teen short story collection Friends: Stories About New Friends, Old Friends, and Unexpectedly True Friends
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|April 2006
|"Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls"
|The CosmoGIRL! short story collection Shining On
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|June 2006
|"Reunion"
|The adult short story collection Girls' Night Out
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|Spring 2007
|"Cry, Linda, Cry: Judy Blume's Blubber and The Cruelest Thing in the World"
|Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned From Judy Blume
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|May 2007
|"The Exterminator's Daughter"
|Prom Nights From Hell
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|July 2007
|"Ask Annie"
|Midnight Feast
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|September 2008
|"Another All-American Girl"
|Our White House, Looking In, Looking Out
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|February 2009
|"Where's My Belt?"
|My Little Red Book
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|July 2009
|"Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret"
|Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading
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|May 2010
|"Legacy'
|Queen of Teen
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|"Every Girl's Dream"
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|A short story written by Cabot out of the Mediator series
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|September 2010
|"Princess Prettypants"
|The anthology Zombie vs. Unicorns
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|September 2010
|"The Night Hunter"
|The anthology Fear: 13 Stories of Horror and Suspense
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|August 2011
|"Falling in Lust at the Jersey Shore"
|Cosmo's Sexiest Stories Ever: Three Naughty Tales
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|September 2011
|"The Protectionist"
|The young adult short story collection What You Wish For
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|August 2012
|"Out of the Blue"
|The anthology Foretold: 14 Tales of Prophecy and Prediction
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|June 2013
|"The Model and The Monster"
|O Livro das Princesas (Book of Princesses)
|Only in Brazil
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|October 2017
|"Beru Whitesun Lars"
|The collection From A Certain Point of View: 40 Stories Celebrating 40 Years of Star Wars
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Adaptations
- In 2001, the film version of The Princess Diaries was released. It starred Anne Hathaway as Amelia "Mia" Thermopolis and Julie Andrews as Clarisse Renaldi. A sequel was released in 2004, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement.
- A Canadian television series based on the 1-800-WHERE-R-YOU series titled Missing was broadcast on the A and W Network in Canada from 2003 to 2006. It was broadcast on Lifetime in the United States.
- The Disney Channel original movie version of Avalon High premiered in late fall 2010. the film starred Gregg Sulkin as A. William Wagner and Britt Robertson as Allie Pennington (Ellie Harrison)
Awards
- The Princess Diaries was voted one of Time magazine's 100 Best YA Books of All Time.
- Top Ten Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers selection, Best Book selection, American Library Association, and New York Public Library Teen Book for the New Millennium citation, all 2001, all for The Princess Diaries
- Edgar Allan Poe Award nomination, best young adult category, Mystery Writers of America, 2003, for Safe House
- The Princess Diaries was voted "one of the nation's 100 best-loved novels" by the British public as part of the Big Read, British Broadcasting Corporation, 2003.
- Airhead nominated for Teen Choice Book of the Year, 2009
Charity
Meg has teamed with the Make-a-Wish Foundation and the Starlight Children's Foundation to mentor seriously and terminally ill children.
;Events
- In March 2012, Meg helped raise money for Authors for Henryville to benefit tornado victims in Indiana.
- In 2010, Meg donated proceeds from books purchased at the Kappa Book Fair and Dinner to the Craig Hospital in Denver. The hospital specializes in spinal cord and brain injuries.
- In 2009, Meg held a Tiara Auction to benefit the New York Public Library. Tiaras decorated by celebrities, authors, and designers such as Julie Andrews, Vera Wang, Tommy Hilfiger, Lauren Conrad, Mo Rocca, and Julianne Moore were auctioned and raised over $15,000 for teen programs at the library.
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;Short stories and books benefitting charities
10% of the author's US proceeds from Quarantine Princess Diaries, published in 2023 will go to Vow for Girls, a global charity that aims to end child marriage.
In 2012, Meg's short story Wooden Animal appeared in Significant Objects, an anthology that benefitted Girls Write Now.
And in 2011, Meg contributed the story The Protectionist to the anthology What You Wish For. One hundred percent of proceeds benefited the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, which builds libraries in Darfuri refugee camps in Chad.
All of Meg's proceeds from her story The Exterminator's Daughter, in the anthology Prom Nights From Hell, benefit First Book, a nonprofit organization connecting book publishers and community organizations to provide access to new books for children in need.
All of Meg's proceeds from The Princess Diaries, Volume 4 1/2, Project Princess, go to benefit The Lower Eastside Girls Club of New York City. Editions sold to publishers in 10 countries outside the US benefited local charities in those countries.
All of Meg's proceeds from the novel Ransom My Heart by Mia Thermopolis, Princess of Genovia (with help from Meg Cabot) go to benefit Greenpeace (Ransom My Heart is also printed on recycled paper). The proceeds from sales of Ransom My Heart to publishers in 8 countries have also gone to Mia's favorite charity.
Meg's story The Night Hunter was included in the anthology Fear: 13 Stories of Suspense. All author proceeds from this book benefit the Reading Is Fundamental literacy program for children.
In 2008, Meg contributed a story (Another All-American Girl) to the anthology Our White House: Looking In, Looking Out with all proceeds benefitting the National Children's Book and Literacy Alliance.
Meg's also written short stories for anthologies that have benefited the Teenage Cancer Trust, War Child, No Strings, Lisa Libraries, Kids Company, and the New York Public Libraries, among other organizations.
References
Sources
- "Meg Cabot." Authors and Artists for Young Adults, Volume 50. Gale Group, 2003. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2006.