Biography of Ally Condie

Allyson Braithwaite Condie, otherwise known as Ally Condie, is the author of nine novels: the Matched trilogy, the Yearbook trilogy, Being Sixteen, Freshman for President, and Atlantia. Her writing has appeared in Enthralled, a collaborative anthology of paranormal short stories, as well as The Moms' Club Diaries: Notes from a World of Playdates, Pacifiers, and Poignant Moments, which she compiled with writer Lindsay Hepworth.

Condie was born in 1971 and spent her youth in southern Utah. Her mother, an artist, was a significant creative influence on her growing up, introducing her to many famous paintings and poems. Condie graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in English teaching, after which time she taught high school English in Utah and upstate New York for several years. She began writing after her first son was born. Her first novel, Yearbook, was published by Deseret Book in 2006, and was followed by two sequels, First Day and Reunion, in 2007 and 2008, respectively.

Condie is a devout Mormon and has spoken on multiple occasions about her faith's role in some of her works. For Being Sixteen and the Yearbook trilogy, all of which she wrote specifically for young adults of the Mormon faith, Condie has said that she felt free to write about her faith without simultaneously defending it, although the characters' Mormonism didn't necessarily need to be the focus of the story. She also said in an interview with mormonartist.net that though there is no religion in the dystopian world of Matched, she intentionally employed themes of "free agency and choice and accountability" that stem directly from her religion.

Condie has said in interviews that her inspiration to write Matched came from a conversation she and her husband had over dinner one night about the societal role of marriage. She also drew inspiration from chaperoning a high school Junior Prom, and from a matching dance that she attended in high school. After a setback in which Deseret Book decided to drop her as one of their clients, Condie published Matched with Dutton Penguin in November of 2010. Matched’s sequels, Crossed and Reached, were published exactly one and two years later.

Most recently, Condie been promoting her new book, Atlantia, a standalone novel released in late 2014. She describes its story, set in a dystopian future, as being "about sisters and mystery and a crumbling underwater city and falling in love for the first time," though "it’s not about mermaids, just people who have escaped air pollution by building a city underwater." She lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, with her husband and four children, and loves reading, running, eating, and listening to her husband play guitar.