Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Beatrice Sparks
Beatrice Sparks, born Beatrice Ruby Mathews (January 15, 1917 – May 25, 2012) was an American writer and hoaxer. She was an alleged Mormon youth counselor; more famously, she became an author and serial con artist, known primarily for producing books purporting to be the "real diaries" of troubled teenagers. The books deal with topical issues such as drug abuse, Satanism, teenage pregnancy, and AIDS, and are presented as cautionary tales.
Although Sparks presented herself as merely the discoverer and editor of the diaries, records at the U.S. Copyright Office list her as the sole author for all but two of them, indicating that the books were fabricated and fictional. Her most famous work, 1971's Go Ask Alice (credited to "Anonymous") has sold nearly six million copies.
Beatrice Ruby Mathews was born in Goldburg, Custer County, Idaho and grew up in Logan, Utah. Leaving home at 17 to move to California, she married LaVorn Sparks in 1937. The couple started a family, having three children (one of whom died in infancy) and were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After some early financial struggles, LaVorn Sparks became wealthy having had successfully speculated in Texas oil during WWII.
After WWII, the Sparks family lived a very comfortable existence for nearly twenty years in Los Angeles. Usually working as "Bee Sparks" (though sometimes using the pen-name "Susan LaVorn"), aspiring writer Beatrice contributed to circulars distributed by local businesses and to church publications, and worked briefly as a stripper in her early teen years. In her self-written author bios of the period, she claimed variously to have studied at Utah State Agricultural College, or to have studied psychology and philosophy at the University of Utah. Neither claim has any evidence to back it up.
In the early 1950's, she co-authored a play with Barbera called The Maid and the Martian, which ran in Los Angeles and was a moderate local success. (A pre-fame James Arness starred in one run of the play.) The play was eventually turned into the film Pajama Party in 1964, but after numerous changes to the idea and dialogue, Sparks' name was omitted from the film's credits.
Their kids having grown, Beatrice and LaVorn Sparks moved to a large mansion in Provo, Utah in 1964.
Beatrice Sparks had volunteered at a veteran's hospital in L.A., and continued her volunteer work at the Utah State Hospital in Provo. In later tellings by Sparks, she was a youth counselor at the hospital, as well as for a youth summer camp run on the campus of Brigham Young University -- this is where she alleges to have met the young woman who wrote the diaries that became Go Ask Alice. In fact, while it's possible she met a young woman there that was the inspiration for the book, her volunteer duties at the hospital and the summer camp were strictly administrative or organizational in nature, and did not include professional counseling.
Sparks claimed that her experiences working with troubled adolescents made her want to produce cautionary tales that would keep other teens from falling into the same traps. Her first book, Go Ask Alice, was presented by Sparks to a publisher as a diary that had been given to her by a young girl who subsequently died.[citation needed] Though Sparks received the book's author royalties, it was published under the byline "Anonymous" in 1971 at her agent's and publisher's insistence. (Curiously, author royalties for the surviving family members of the alleged diarist were never discussed.)[citation needed] The book was presented as the diary of an unnamed teenage girl who became involved in drugs and underage sex, vowed to clean up, but then died from an overdose a few weeks after her final diary entry. By presenting the diary as the work of anonymous teen, with no mention of Sparks whatsoever, the publisher felt the book would connect more strongly with the intended teen audience.[citation needed]
Hub AI
Beatrice Sparks AI simulator
(@Beatrice Sparks_simulator)
Beatrice Sparks
Beatrice Sparks, born Beatrice Ruby Mathews (January 15, 1917 – May 25, 2012) was an American writer and hoaxer. She was an alleged Mormon youth counselor; more famously, she became an author and serial con artist, known primarily for producing books purporting to be the "real diaries" of troubled teenagers. The books deal with topical issues such as drug abuse, Satanism, teenage pregnancy, and AIDS, and are presented as cautionary tales.
Although Sparks presented herself as merely the discoverer and editor of the diaries, records at the U.S. Copyright Office list her as the sole author for all but two of them, indicating that the books were fabricated and fictional. Her most famous work, 1971's Go Ask Alice (credited to "Anonymous") has sold nearly six million copies.
Beatrice Ruby Mathews was born in Goldburg, Custer County, Idaho and grew up in Logan, Utah. Leaving home at 17 to move to California, she married LaVorn Sparks in 1937. The couple started a family, having three children (one of whom died in infancy) and were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After some early financial struggles, LaVorn Sparks became wealthy having had successfully speculated in Texas oil during WWII.
After WWII, the Sparks family lived a very comfortable existence for nearly twenty years in Los Angeles. Usually working as "Bee Sparks" (though sometimes using the pen-name "Susan LaVorn"), aspiring writer Beatrice contributed to circulars distributed by local businesses and to church publications, and worked briefly as a stripper in her early teen years. In her self-written author bios of the period, she claimed variously to have studied at Utah State Agricultural College, or to have studied psychology and philosophy at the University of Utah. Neither claim has any evidence to back it up.
In the early 1950's, she co-authored a play with Barbera called The Maid and the Martian, which ran in Los Angeles and was a moderate local success. (A pre-fame James Arness starred in one run of the play.) The play was eventually turned into the film Pajama Party in 1964, but after numerous changes to the idea and dialogue, Sparks' name was omitted from the film's credits.
Their kids having grown, Beatrice and LaVorn Sparks moved to a large mansion in Provo, Utah in 1964.
Beatrice Sparks had volunteered at a veteran's hospital in L.A., and continued her volunteer work at the Utah State Hospital in Provo. In later tellings by Sparks, she was a youth counselor at the hospital, as well as for a youth summer camp run on the campus of Brigham Young University -- this is where she alleges to have met the young woman who wrote the diaries that became Go Ask Alice. In fact, while it's possible she met a young woman there that was the inspiration for the book, her volunteer duties at the hospital and the summer camp were strictly administrative or organizational in nature, and did not include professional counseling.
Sparks claimed that her experiences working with troubled adolescents made her want to produce cautionary tales that would keep other teens from falling into the same traps. Her first book, Go Ask Alice, was presented by Sparks to a publisher as a diary that had been given to her by a young girl who subsequently died.[citation needed] Though Sparks received the book's author royalties, it was published under the byline "Anonymous" in 1971 at her agent's and publisher's insistence. (Curiously, author royalties for the surviving family members of the alleged diarist were never discussed.)[citation needed] The book was presented as the diary of an unnamed teenage girl who became involved in drugs and underage sex, vowed to clean up, but then died from an overdose a few weeks after her final diary entry. By presenting the diary as the work of anonymous teen, with no mention of Sparks whatsoever, the publisher felt the book would connect more strongly with the intended teen audience.[citation needed]