Carol Dines

Carol Dines was born and raised in Rochester, Minnesota. After earning her B.A. from Stanford University and an M.A. from Colorado State University, she taught writing courses at universities in Wisconsin, Florida, and Minnesota. For the last fifteen years, she has also taught poetry and fiction in schools.

Her first book for young adults, Best Friends Tell the Best Lies (1989) was an Honor Book in the Fifth Annual Delacorte Press Contest, and her second book, Talk to Me (1997) was a collection of six stories and a novella portraying realistic portraits of teenagers and their families in contemporary society. The Queen’s Soprano (2006), a historical novel, depicts the true story of a gifted young singer who risked her life to sing in 17th century Rome.

Carol and her husband, Jack Zipes, have a grown daughter. They now divide their life between Minneapolis and Rome, Italy.

The Queen's Soprano
Harcourt Children's Books, May 2006
Young Adult, ISBN 978-0-15-205477-9

Seventeen-year-old Angelica Voglia has the voice of an angel. But in seventeenth-century Rome, the pope has forbidden women to sing in public. To make matters worse, her controlling mother is determined to marry her off to a wealthy nobleman, even though Angelica is in love with a poor French artist. Angelica's only hope to sing before an audience—and escape a forced marriage—is to flee to Queen Christina's court, where she will become the queen's soprano. But she soon discovers that the palace walls are not completely secure . . . and her freedom will require even greater sacrifice than she imagined.

Talk to Me: Stories and a Novella
Delacorte, May 1997
Young Adult, ISBN 978-0-385-32271-3

Buoyant, poignant, absorbingly real, Carol Dines writes with humor and unflinching insight in six stories and a novella that capture many voices, among them Lise, 15, whose Dad's marriages mean too many mothers; Wes, who escapes the eyes of his small town for the glories of Paris; Pete, a decent kid who learns that locker-room talk can have painful repercussions; and Holly, who brings her own special meaning to the term "boy crazy."

Best Friends Tell the Best Lies
Delacorte, 1989
ISBN 978-0-385-29704-2

Fourteen-year-old Leah's loyalty and devotion to her emotionally troubled friend, Tamara, brings into focus some of her conflicting feelings about her mother's imminent remarriage and her own growing attachment to a young Mexican American, the nephew of her mother's boyfriend.