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About Marie Lu’s Life
Marie Lu is an American author who is known for her action packed plots, and complex characters. She writes Dystopian fiction books. Her stories inspire her readers to explore their identity and help unlock the power of their imagination.
Early Life
Marie Lu was born in Wuxi, China. She spent the first five years of her life in China and then suddenly her family immigrated to the United States to seek a better life and new opportunities. They settled in a Houston suburb in Texas called Sugar Land. The move to the United States was a struggle for Marie. She didn’t know English and there were just so many cultural differences. The move to the United States made her feel as she had said in interviews “culturally out of place” and she would use art and storytelling to express herself. This helped influence her writing career. Drawing and writing helped her process her emotions and help adapt to life in the United States. As a child she would fill out notebooks and write short stories and draw. She would create characters that represented her experiences. After high school Lu attended the University of Southern California. She earned a degree in political science. Although this is different from her writing career, it helped her broaden her view of the world and strengthened her senses of how events in the world help shape human behavior. This helped her weave in the complexities of the characters in her fiction books. After graduating College she pursued a career in the video game industry. She worked as an artist at Disney Interactive Studios. This era of work helped her come to appreciate visual storytelling and interactive design. These skills became very valuable when she transitioned into full time writing.
How Marie Lu Became an Author
Before becoming an author Lu worked in the video game industry. This career was really good for her because it really zoned into her visual thinking. It also inspired her to take a narrative approach on different things inspiring her transition into becoming an author. Lu has often described writing as therapeutic. During her early years in the U.S. She struggled with her emotions and used writing stories as a comforting method. She loved to both read and write stories. As she matured she realized that the fantasy and dystopian genres, which she loved, lacked diversity. Most of the heroes she would read about were often white and males. This realization made her reimagine what heroism could look like. This motivated her to start writing stories that featured protagonists with different experiences and backgrounds. She was determined to give the people different perspectives and have a different representation in fiction. Lu’s debut as an author marked the beginning of a new era of fiction. Her Legend series was a huge success. It earned her recognition on the New York Times best seller list and launched her into the spotlight. Legend opened the door for more diverse and complex stories. Since then, Lu has continued to build off of her initial success and challenges readers to question morality and power through series such as The Young Elites, Warcross, Skyhunter, Stars and Smoke, and Red City. Several of her novels have been optioned for TV and films. This just shows how special her ability to create stories is. Lu continues to write stories about the creative and emotional journey of unique complex characters. She love to create stories about the choices people make and the impact it has on a society. Her work continues to gain popularity and she gains many new readers a year.
Writing style
Marie Lu’s writing style is characterized by emotional depth. Her protagonists are often complex and have a conflict with morals. This shows she believes that good and evil exists. She really loves to explore the psychology of villains who she tries to make unpredictable. Lu’s approach to character development really shows her interest in human motivation. Her background in gaming and art gives her fiction a dynamic quality. Her stories flow really well. Another point Lu tries to show in her writing is the empathy of her characters. Lu has often said that stories shape how people understand one another. She uses her books to encourage inclusivity and compassion.
Life Today
Today, Marie Lu lives in Los Angeles, California, as she continues to write full-time. Despite her fame she remains approachable and deeply interactive with her readers. She goes to a lot of literary festivals and connects online with her fans. Lu really shows how the journey of someone affects how they are as a person. Her hardships of immigrating to the USA at a young age really helped develop her character into an empathetic, compassionate person. Her journey to encourage inclusivity and compassion continues as she continues to write books.
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