American · b. 1994
Asha Lemmie grew up in Maryland and went to school in Washington, D.C. She graduated from Boston College in 2015 with a degree in English literature and creative writing, then moved to New York City and worked in publishing while she finished her manuscript. She had started that manuscript in high school. Agents were slow to take on a young, unpublished first-time novelist, and she signed with one in 2019. Two months later the book sold at auction for more than $250,000. Fifty Words for Rain came out in 2020, landed on the New York Times bestseller list, and was picked for the Good Morning America Book Club. Her second novel is The Wildest Sun.