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Fast Facts
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THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN was the first book chosen for the Oprah Winfrey Book
Club in September 1996.
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One of the reasons Michelle Pfieffer chose to star in and produce to the film version
of THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN was because her daughter, Claudia, was adopted.
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As Headliner Award winner, Mitchard was honored with her very own living eulogy by
Once A Year Magazine in 1997.
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In 1991 and 1992, Mitchard wrote two children's books about peace activist Jane
Addams, Jane Addams: Pioneer In Social Reform and Activist for World Peace and Jane
Addams: Peace Activist.
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One of the central characters of THE MOST WANTED falls in love with a carpenter/artist
several years her junior. Somewhat prophetically, Chris Sornberger --- 13 years Mitchard's
junior --- arrived at her house one afternoon to lay tile in her bathroom. Mitchard and
the handyman/artist were married within weeks.
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Bio
Mitchard was born in Chicago, Illinois, the oldest of two daughters. After graduating
with a BA in English from Rockford College in 1973, she taught high school English (and
waited tables). Mitchard's professional writing career began in 1976 for the Pioneer
Press in Chicago. Soon after she took a job at the Capital Times in Madison,
Wisconsin, where she met and married editor Dan Allegretti. In 1984 she moved to The Milwaukee
Journal-Sentinel, where her column "The Rest of Us" became nationally
syndicated.
In 1993, Mitchard's husband passed away. It was then, with five children and less than one
dollar in the bank, that Mitchard went to a writer's camp and conceived the storyline of
her first novel, THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN. The book went on to garner critical acclaim
and become a New York Times bestseller.
Mitchard is also the author of THE MOST WANTED, the memoir MOTHER LESS CHILD: The Love
Story of a Family and THE REST OF US: Dispatches from the Mother Ship, a collection of her
syndicated columns. Mitchard has received a Maggie Award for Journalism, three Ragdale
residencies, and the 1997 Anne Powers Award for fiction from the Council of Wisconsin
Writers. She lives outside of Madison, Wisconsin with her husband and six children.
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