Biography of E L James

EL James is the pen name of Erika Leonard Mitchell. She has stated that she uses the pen name because of the sexually explicit nature of her fiction, and because she had young children when she first began writing. James was born on March 7, 1963 in Willesden, England. She studied history at the University of Kent, and began working at the National Film and Television School after her graduation. She continued to work in the television industry for a number of years. In 1987, she married Niall Leonard, a screenwriter, with whom she has two children.

James only became interested in writing after she read the popular Twilight series, written by Stephanie Meyers. In late December 2008-January 2009, James read and re-read Meyers's trilogy, and became inspired to write sequels featuring the same characters. She wrote two novels featuring characters from the Twilight series between January and August 2009. According to James, it was only in August 2009 that she realized there was an active online community for writers of "fan fiction" (literature featuring characters and plot elements from other works, along with extended or altered plot lines). She began publishing fan fiction on the site fanfiction.net using the pseudonym Snowqueen's Icedragon. From her writing in response to Twilight, James developed a series called Master of the Universe, and this series eventually became Fifty Shades of Grey, and its two sequels, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed (both published in 2012).

After her initially self-published novel was picked up by mainstream publishers in 2012, James became one of the best-selling authors of all time. In 2012, Time magazine named her one of "The World's 100 Most Influential People" and by 2013, the record-breaking sales of the trilogy meant she was the highest paid author in the world. With the success of the novels, there was quickly a bidding war for the film rights. By March 2013, Universal Pictures and Focus Features had purchased the rights, and James negotiated elements of creative control over the script and directing. In addition to her contributions to the film adaptation, James also published two more novels in the Fifty Shades series, both retelling the story from the perspective of Christian Grey: Grey (2015) and Darker (2017).

In 2019, James published her first novel to feature characters not from the Fifty Shades world: The Mister, which tells the story of a wealthy English aristocrat who falls in love with his Eastern European housekeeper. James lives in London with her family.