[8][9] In 1992, Meyer won a National Merit Scholarship,[10] which helped fund her undergraduate studies at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature in 1997.

[31] Bimonthly book signings and events at the Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona, early in her writing career helped cultivate her fanbase.

[75] However, an article from The Telegraph rebutted The Guardian's claim, arguing that Twilight remained the best film in the series due to the "entirely straight-faced contrast between the forces of eternal darkness and the rigors of high school".

[91] In August 2009, USA Today revealed that Meyer broke J. K. Rowling's record on their bestseller list; the four Twilight books had spent 52 straight weeks in the top 10.

[94] In 2015, she published a new book in honor of the 10th anniversary of the best-selling franchise titled Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined, with the genders of the original protagonists switched.

[96] Following the release of The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, Stephenie Meyer donated $1.5 million to the American Red Cross Relief Fund to aid victims of the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile.

Meyer stated in a New York Comic-Con panel that it was "a literal flip the table moment", admitting that "Midnight Sun is kind of cursed".

[106] Meyer has mentioned having several other book ideas on file, including a ghost story titled Summer House, a novel involving time travel,[107] as well as another about mermaids.

[112] Despite having expressed intention to write a trilogy, with the second and third books being called The Soul and The Seeker, respectively,[113] Meyer has not published any follow-up novels to The Host as of 2024[update].

[42] The Host was adapted into a film with Andrew Niccol directing, and Saoirse Ronan starring as Melanie Stryder, Max Irons as Jared Howe and Jake Abel as Ian O'Shea.

[124] In July 2016, Little, Brown and Company announced that Meyer has written an adult action thriller titled The Chemist, about "an ex-agent on the run from her former employers".

[125] In 2018, it was announced that Meyer's production company Fickle Fish would be working with Tomorrow Studios to produce a television series based on The Chemist.

[87][127] Entertainment Weekly has stated that Meyer is "the world's most popular vampire novelist since Anne Rice",[128] while The Guardian described her as an "imaginative storyteller, a prolific author and a newly powerful figure in the publishing market".

[129] Wayne Janes of the Toronto Sun agreed, saying "Meyer's success points up another trend—the virtual domination of the best-seller lists the last few years by what would normally be classified as young adult fiction", and noted, "In the absence of a new Harry Potter adventure, teens, fantasy enthusiasts and women (sales are mostly to women) who swoon at the idea of a virginal James Dean-ish vampire made Meyer the go-to gal for chaste love.

[134] Meyer was featured in an issue of the biographical comic Female Force, a Bluewater Productions title that celebrates influential women in society and pop culture.

[139] Entertainment Weekly stated that the narrative of Breaking Dawn was at times so chaotic and outrageous that Meyer shifted the point of view to Jacob Black, which only toned down the mayhem of the plot for so long.

[25] Meyer has gained a following among young adult readers of the Twilight novels, which are set in the small town of Forks on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state.

Forks has thus received attention from fans and celebrates "Stephenie Meyer Day" on September 13, the date of character Bella Swan's birthday.

[147][148] An unofficial Twilight themed fan convention called TwiCon was organized in Dallas, Texas, in summer 2009, which included "Twi-rock" band performances, a Volturi Ball, panels, workshops, and vendors.

Meyer's prose lacks a consistent style or voice; for example, her short story "Hell on Earth" is driven more by dialogue alone, in contrast with the ornate descriptions found in the Twilight series.

In Twilight, Meyer makes allusions to canonical texts such as the Book of Genesis, Wuthering Heights, Macbeth, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

[157] A corpus stylistics analysis of the Twilight saga revealed that much of Meyer's description and characterization revolved around the physical attributes of the characters as shown through eyes, face, and expression.

[162] Meyer has cited many novels as inspiration for the Twilight series, including Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables and its sequels.

[165] The choice to name Edward came from the works of Charlotte Brontë and Jane Austen, and her novels are influenced by both medieval courtly love and 19th-century etiquette.

In The Host, Wanda learns that despite the lows and evils of humanity, beauty and pleasure could not be found on her previous planets because darkness did not exist.

[180] Self-control is a prominent theme in the Twilight series, the word appears 125 times throughout the novels, as the main characters struggle to control their emotions, attraction, thirst, or jealousy.

However, the final novel is titled Breaking Dawn, which symbolizes the beginning of a new day and Bella's transformation into a vampire and subsequent transcendence of her old life.

[184] Meyer is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and does not drink alcohol or coffee, smoke, or watch R-rated movies.

[195] Women's studies scholar Donna Ashcraft argues that Meyer is not a feminist, by definition, because her novels encourage traditional gender roles.

[191] After being asked in an interview with The Guardian whether she is anti-abortion, Meyer refused to directly answer the question, insisting that she does not like to talk about politics and that she abhors when celebrities use their popularity to influence voters.