Beatrice Sparks

Common card · No. 347186

Beatrice Sparks, born Beatrice Ruby Mathews (January 15, 1917 – May 25, 2012) was an American writer and hoaxer who produced a series of books purporting to be the "real diaries" of troubled teenagers. The books deal with topical issues such as drug abuse, Satanism, teenage pregnancy, and AIDS, and are presented as cautionary tales. Her 1971 book Go Ask Alice (credited to "Anonymous") has sold nearly six million copies. Although Sparks presented herself as merely the discoverer and editor of the diaries, records at the U.S. Copyright Office list her as the sole author for all but two of them. Later researchers have claimed that despite her claiming to be the editor of real teenagers diaries, she, in fact, invented the stories herself.

Read on Wikipedia