Elizabeth Berg is an American nurse turned writer, born on December 2, 1948 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA, now living in Chicago, earlier in Boston. She studied English at the University of Minnesota, but later ended up with a nursing degree. Her writing career started when she won an essay contest in Parents magazine. Since her debut novel in 1993, her novels have sold in large numbers and have received several awards and nominations, even though some critics have tagged them as sentimental. She won the New England Book Awards in 1997. The three novels Durable Goods, Joy School, and True to Form form a trilogy about the 12-year-old Katie Nash, in part based on the author's own experience as a daughter in a military family. Most recently, her essay "The Pretend Knitter" appears in the anthology Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting, published by W. W. Norton & Company in November 2013. 

December 2nd, 1948 in Saint Paul (Age 75)