Nicholas Sparks was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on December 31, 1965. While he was growing up, his family lived in Nebraska and Michigan before settling in California, where he graduated high school as valedictorian in 1984. In 1985, as a freshman at Notre Dame, he broke the school record for the 4 × 800 relay in track. After suffering from a track-related injury, and at his mother's suggestion, he tried his hand at writing. He wrote a novel, but it was never published.

He married his wife Catherine in July of 1989 and they lived in Sacramento, California, while he worked at a number of jobs. He wrote another novel, which, like the first, was never published. In 1992, his job as a pharmaceutical salesman required a relocation to North Carolina, where he later wrote The Notebook. While it was not his first published novel—that was Wokini: A Lakota Journey to Happiness and Self-Understanding...