Biography of Jodi Picoult

Jodi Picoult is an American author of over twenty novels, many of which have become best sellers in the United States and internationally.

Picoult was born in Long Island, and her family moved to New Hampshire when she was an adolescent. Her family was culturally Jewish but not religious. Picoult was interested in writing from a young age and began publishing while she was still in college at Princeton University, when two of her stories were accepted to Seventeen Magazine. After graduating from Princeton, she pursued a number of jobs including working as a middle school English teacher and editing textbooks. Five years after college, she published her first novel, Songs of the Humpback Whale.

Since 1992, Picoult has published dozens of books and short story collections. She has collaborated with her daughter on a set of young adult novels and has even written for DC Comics' Wonder Woman. At least eight of Picoult's books have debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list, and five of her novels have been adapted into movies. Among other awards, Picoult has received a lifetime achievement award for mainstream fiction from the Romance Writers of America, was named Waterstone’s Author of the Year in the UK, and is the 2013-14 recipient of the New Hampshire Literary Award for Outstanding Literary Merit.