American · b. 1966
Jodi Picoult is an American novelist known for issue-driven family dramas told from multiple points of view, often turning on a legal or ethical dilemma. Born on Long Island and raised in Nesconset, New York, she wrote her first story at five and studied creative writing at Princeton University before earning a masters degree in education from Harvard. She worked as a textbook editor and teacher before her first novel, Songs of the Humpback Whale, appeared in 1992. Nineteen Minutes (2007), about a school shooting and its aftermath, became one of her best-known books and a New York Times bestseller, as did My Sisters Keeper and several dozen others. Picoult researches each novel extensively, often interviewing doctors, lawyers, and other specialists, and her books are frequently adopted by book clubs for their frank handling of controversial subjects. She has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide and continues to publish roughly a book a year.