Sue Townsend was born in Leicester, England on April 2, 1946. She left school at fifteen and worked a series of jobs before becoming a full-time author. She was best known for her books about the neurotic diarist Adrian Mole including The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 �, The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole, Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years, Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years. Her other works include The Queen and I, Number Ten, The Public Confessions of a Middle-Aged Woman Aged 55�, and The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year. She died after a stroke on April 10, 2014 at the age of 68.