Meet Sarah

Sarah-Burningham

Sarah O’Leary Burningham is the author of Truth & Daring: A Journal for the Thoughtful and Bold, Girl to Girl: Honest Talk About Growing Up and Your Changing Body, Boyology: A Teen Girl’s Crash Course in All Things Boy and How to Raise Your Parents: A Teen Girl’s Survival Guide, all published by Chronicle Books.

She has been interviewed by numerous national media and news outlets, including the NBC’s Today Show, ABC News, CBS News, FOX News, NPR, Newsweek, Teen Vogue, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Oprah Radio, among others. She wrote an advice column for the ABC Family Network for 2 years and is represented by the HarperCollins Speakers Bureau.

Sarah has spoken at schools, libraries, parent groups, and teen book clubs around the country. The recipient of a Utah Journalism Award, her writing has appeared in many publications, including CosmoGirl!, Publishers Weekly, Salt Lake Magazine and Catalyst magazine. When she’s not writing, she runs a PR and marketing agency.

As the oldest of three younger sisters (and a little brother), Sarah has a lot of experience coaching girls though growing up. She loves reading, red lipstick, and travel, and even though she’s no longer a teenager, still steals her sisters’ clothes. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband and two daughters.

Things I Love:

(in no particular order)

  • My daughters
  • Reading
  • Skiing
  • Riding my Vespa (it’s creamsicle orange!)
  • Anything crafty (I’m learning to sew)
  • Travel
  • Red lipstick
  • Writing
  • Grant
  • Avey – our former pet canary. We moved into a building that won’t allow pets. I still think we should’ve snuck him in.
  • Birds in general
  • Jazz
  • My family
  • Fashion week parties
  • Handbags
  • Salsa (it tastes good on everything!)
  • Audrey Hepburn
  • Fall in New York
  • Spring in Salt Lake City
  • Neil Simon plays
  • Cheap manicures and pedicures
  • The Sunday Styles section
  • Afternoon naps
  • Did I say Grant?
  • Did I say my daughters?
  • Making up my own lyrics to songs – mostly because I can’t remember the real lyrics to anything
  • Running into old friends
  • Road trips
  • Cafe Lalo
  • Free diet coke refills
  • The mountains
  • The Book Review, ok–the entire Times but only online
  • Capri
  • When Grant makes me dinner
  • That new-book smell
  • Vieques (the bioluminescent bay is amazing!)
  • Humming
  • My nieces and nephews
  • Pants you don’t have to wear belts with
  • Natural light!!
  • Montauk
  • Edward Hopper
  • Living in Jackson Heights – I’m one of those people who’s obsessed with her neighborhood
  • Decrepit architecture – especially Soviet era stuff in St. Petersburg
  • The Georgia Nicholson books by Louise Rennison
  • The Great Gatsby – I re-read it every summer
  • Interior design blogs. There are too many good ones to name!
  • Curling up on the couch when it’s snowing outside

Things I Loathe:

  • Dirty snow
  • Ice in my milk – especially the unintentional ice that happens when the fridge setting is too cold and things start to accidentally freeze
  • Bad hair pieces (True story: I once saw the Just for Men hair guy wearing a terrible hair piece!)
  • Negative people – you know who you are
  • Name dropping