Jodi Picoult is a bestselling American author who has sold more than 40 million copies of her 27 novels, which have been translated into 34 languages. She is known for writing popular family sagas in contemporary fiction, depicting emotional, challenging, and often controversial topics. Her work has covered abortion, assisted suicide, race relations, eugenics, LGBTQ+ rights, and school shootings.
Despite being generally pigeonholed as a “chick-lit” writer, she has developed a constantly growing fan base that includes multiple generations of both male and female readers.
“I chose to be a commercial author because I knew I was going to write the same kind of book, the same quality of writing, no matter what I wrote, and I wanted to reach more people,” she said in an interview with The Guardian.
Picoult studied creative writing at Princeton University and graduated with a bachelor’s in English, then went on to earn a master’s in education from Harvard University. Her early career consisted of a variety of jobs, including writing bond portfolios on Wall Street, writing copy for an ad agency, editing textbooks, and teaching eighth-grade English.
“Songs of the Humpback Whale” was Picoult’s debut novel. Released in 1992, it is the account of a woman leaving an emotionally abusive and distant husband to live in an apple orchard with her brother and daughter.
Since her debut, Picoult has released a book nearly every year. “Nineteen minutes,” released in 2007, was her first book to debut at number one on The New York Times bestseller list. “Change of Heart,” “Handle with Care,” and “House Rules” followed over the next three years, also debuting at number one.
Other bestsellers include “Wish You Were Here,” “The Book of Two Ways,” “A Spark of Light,” “Small Great Things,” “Leaving Time,” “The Storyteller,” “Lone Wolf,” “Sing You Home,” and “My Sister's Keeper.”
Picoult has amassed critical acclaim and multiple awards, including the New England Bookseller Award for Fiction, the Alex Award from the Young Adult Library Services Association, a Lifetime Achievement Award for mainstream fiction from the Romance Writers of America, and, most recently, a Sarah Josepha Hale Award.