LJ Smith, the author behind the beloved and best-selling The Vampire Diaries series, has died. She was 66.
The writer had been battling a rare autoimmune disease for a decade. Her death on March 8 was confirmed by her partner, Julie Divola, and her sister, Judy Clifford.
Born Lisa Jane Smith in Walnut Creek, California on September 4, 1958, she was inspired to write by her high school English teacher, Zoe Gibbs.
Smith studied psychology at the University of California in Santa Barbara, before receiving her teaching credentials from San Francisco State University. In 1986 she began teaching at an elementary school, but left after three years to pursue writing full time.
In 1987, while she was still teaching, MacMillan published her first book The Night of the Solstice. Follow-up Heart of Valor was published in 1990.
That same year, Alloy Entertainment editor Elise Donner commissioned her to begin writingThe Vampire Diaries. The first three books in the series were published in 1991 by HarperCollins, with a fourth released the following year.
But Smith didn’t realize at the time that the work was for hire; she didn’t own the characters or the copyright.
She became a prolific author of young adult fiction, writing a series of trilogies: The Secret Circle (1992), The Forbidden Game (1994) and Dark Visions (1995). In 1996 she published the first book in her Night World series, which was followed by eight more books over the next two years.
When vampire books experienced a resurgence in popularity during the mid-2000s, sales of The Vampire Diaries began to soar. She was contracted by Alloy Entertainment to write another trilogy in 2007. This time, she was entitled to half the royalties for the trio of books.
The series was adapted into the TV show of the same name in 2009. But by 2011, Smith had been fired as the official writer of the book series reportedly due to a dispute over a pivotal plot point. Her draft of The Hunters: Phantom was rewritten by a ghostwriter, and a further five more novels were also ghostwritten.
Smith turned to fan fiction to reclaim the characters she had created so many decades prior. In 2014, she used Kindle Worlds to publish a book and a novella continuing the storylines she created.
In 2015, Smith was hospitalized and placed on a ventilator after suffering an undiagnosed granulomatosis with polyangiitis that damaged her kidneys, heart, liver, and gallbladder.
