Jodi Picoult Papers

Background on Jodi Picoult

Born in 1966, Picoult grew up in the Long Island town of Nesconset, New York, knowing from a young age that she wanted to be a writer. The older of two children of a Wall Street analyst and a schoolteacher, she attended public school. She graduated with high honors from Princeton University, where she majored in English and creative writing, in 1987, and from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she earned a master's degree, in 1990. Before becoming a full-time writer, Picoult worked as a technical writer for a Wall Street brokerage firm, a copywriter at an advertising agency, a textbook editor, and an 8th grade English teacher who also directed school plays. New England has been her home for most of her adult life and frequently provides the backdrop for her fiction.

At Princeton, Picoult found a mentor in the travel and fiction writer Mary Morris, with whom she took several creative writing classes (she also studied with visiting professor Robert Stone). Two stories Picoult wrote as class assignments were bought by Seventeen magazine and appeared in 1987. She soon found a literary agent to represent her work. Picoult's senior thesis, a novel, sparked interest among publishers but was not sold. Her first published novel was Songs of the Humpback Whale (1992), followed by a new book nearly every year. With its provocative themes and controversial ending, My Sister's Keeper (2004) drew enormous attention and a vast new readership. Picoult's first #1 bestseller was Nineteen Minutes (2007), which took as its subject a high school shooting and its aftermath. Since then, Picoult's novels regularly debut at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.

Research is fundamental to Picoult's fiction, informing how she conceives and shapes her plots and develops her characters. Not only does she address the complexities of a range of topics, often medical, legal, or social -- eugenics, school violence, teen suicide, spousal abuse, the legal rights of minors, childhood cancer, gay rights, the death penalty, war criminals, vengeance, justice, faith, and the value of life have all featured in her work -- but she also delves into history, myth and lore, religions and cultures, jobs and vocations, to enrich her stories. In addition to spending countless hours reading and interviewing, Picoult has lived with an Amish family, gone ghost hunting, joined police officers on patrol, worked with graphic artists, been fingerprinted, learned to bake bread, and more. But what is perhaps most striking about Picoult's fiction is the intensity of her characters and the determination with which they wrestle with their situations and seek answers. Depicting their vivid inner lives, their deepest memories, and their often complex relationships with other characters, Picoult allows them both to expose their vulnerabilities and to tap unexpected strengths.

Picoult has contributed to anthologies edited by Neil Gaiman, the Chicken Soup for the Soul team, and others. She co-founded Trumbull Hall Troupe, a Hanover, N.H.,-based musical theater group for teens that raises money for local and international charities through annual productions, and has written or co-written all of the original shows, the first of which was staged in 2004.

Picoult's work has been praised by fellow novelists Stephen King, Ann Hood, Elizabeth George, and Jacquelyn Mitchard, and by publications as diverse as The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Glamour, and Ms. Five of Picoult's novels have been dramatized: four (The Pact, Plain Truth, The Tenth Circle, and Salem Falls) as television movies and one (My Sister's Keeper) as a feature film. The musical Between the Lines, based on the novel she wrote with her daughter, Samantha van Leer, had its off-Broadway run in 2022. Picoult tours internationally promoting her books and is a sought-after speaker. Among her awards and honors are two honorary degrees (Dartmouth College, 2010, and University of New Haven, 2012); a New England Independent Booksellers Association (NEIBA) New England Book Award for Fiction (2003); a Young Adult Library Services Association Alex Award (2005); and the Sarah Josepha Hale Award (2019).

Jodi Picoult has long been an active supporter of LGBTQ+ issues and rights, especially involving queer youth, and speaks out against censorship and book bans. She and her husband, Tim van Leer, whom she met while at Princeton and married in 1989, have three grown children and live in Hanover, N.H.