Picoult, Jodi

She was born and raised —happily—on Long Island… something that she believed at first was a detriment to a girl who wanted to be a writer. “I had such an uneventful childhood that when I was taking writing classes at college, I called home and asked my mother if maybe there might have been a little incest or domestic abuse on the side that she’d forgotten about,” Picoult recalls. “It took me a while to realize that I already did have something to write about – that solid core of family, and the knotty tangle of relationships, which I keep coming back to in my books.”

Picoult studied creative writing with Mary Morris at Princeton, and had two short stories published in Seventeen magazine while still a student. “The first time the editor called me to say she wanted to pay me for something I’d written,” Picoult says, “I immediately called my mom and said, ‘I’m going to be a writer!’ ‘That’s great,’ she said. ‘Who’s going to support you?’” Realism – and a profound desire to be able to pay the rent – led Picoult to a series of different jobs following her graduation: as a technical writer for a Wall Street brokerage firm, as a copywriter at an ad agency, as an editor at a textbook publisher, and as an 8th grade English teacher – before entering Harvard to pursue a master’s in education. She married Tim Van Leer, whom she had known at Princeton, and it was while she was pregnant with her first child that she wrote her first novel, Songs of the Humpback Whale.

Picoult says, “I found out it was going to be published just before my son was born, and I had this completely idealistic vision of him sitting at my feet, cooing, while I continued to write books. Needless to say, it didn’t quite work out that way.” Her struggle to balance motherhood and her own career formed, in part, the basis for her second novel, Harvesting the Heart. For a few years, she was either delivering a book or a baby. Now, she’s happy to be prolific solely in her writing… and admits wholeheartedly that she moonlights as a writer, but she’s really a mom. “It took me a while to find the balance,” Picoult says, “but I’m a better mother because I have my writing… and I’m a better writer because of the experiences I’ve had as a parent that continually remind me how far we are willing to go for the people we love the most.”

She and Tim and their three children live in Hanover, New Hampshire with a dog, a rabbit, two Jersey calves, and the occasional Holstein.

“It’s hard to exaggerate how well Picoult writes.”
— Financial Times
“Nothing is ever all said and done in a Picoult novel. One can imagine the ripples of these characters’ lives echoing on and on, even after the last page has been turned. Odds are, you’ll wish you hadn’t turned it. ”
— San Antonio Express-News
“Picoult is a rare writer who delivers book after book, a winning combination of the literary and the commercial.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“Picoult writes with a fine touch, a sharp eye for detail, and a firm grasp of the delicacy and complexity of human relationships.”
—The Boston Globe
Books list:
Keeping Faith
The Pact: A Love Story
Picture Perfect
Harvesting the Heart
Mercy
Second Glance
Salem Falls
Nineteen Minutes
The Tenth Circle
Change of Heart
Plain Truth
My Sister’s Keeper
Vanishing Acts
Perfect Match
Songs of the Humpback Whale
Wonder Woman: Love and Murder

• Through the Lens: National Geographic Greatest Photographs Amazing Gift Book! National Geographic's most expansive and sumptuous photography book ever — a celebration of more than a century of collecting and publishing photographs, with remarkable images from around the world. For more than 100 years, National Geographic has set the standard for nature, culture, and wildlife photography. Now,......
• The Love of the Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald Hollywood is ugly, dangerous - and completely magical. No one captured this better than F. Scott Fitzgerald. "He wrote two very good books," Hemingway said about F.Scott Fitzgerald in his own memoir A Moveable Feast, "and one which was not completed which those who know his writing best say would......
• The Associate by John Grisham If you like Grisham's earliest works (the Firm, the Pelican Brief, etc.) you'll almost certainly like this one too. Similarities between John Grisham's latest book, The Associate, and his previous best seller, The Firm, are unavoidable. With 20 novels and one work of non-fiction, Grisham has returned to trademark territory......
• Wetlands by Charlotte Roche Charlotte Roche is a literary phenomenon. In April last year, she was the first German author to top Amazon's monthly bestseller. Her debut novel, Wetlands, has sold half a million copies at home and is so sexually explicit that people are said to have fainted at readings. The book definitely......
• Armageddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut When Kurt Vonnegut died in April 2007, the world lost a ironic interpreter on the human condition. Thanks to this collection of unpublished fiction and nonfiction, Vonnegut's voice returns full force. Armageddon in Retrospect is a collection of non-fiction and fiction short stories about war and peace written by Kurt......
• Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving John Irving’s, who is author of "The World According to Garp" and "The Cider House Rules", recent novel Last Night in Twisted River is frequently as turbulent as the river that supplies its name. It involves dog fights, drowning, shotgun blasts, lethal car accidents, severed limbs, babies in danger, and......
• Makers by Cory Doctorow What is Makers by Cory Doctorow? A intelligently humorous and creative novel about the end of the economy from the visionary author of Little Brother. Cory Doctorow is an extraordinarily clever commentator of how technology influences the way we live and a astute prognosticator of where it will take us.......
• The Pact:A Love Story by Jodi Picoult For eighteen years the Hartes and the Golds have lived next door to each other, sharing everything from Chinese food to chicken pox to carpool duty. Parents and children alike are best friends - so it's no surprise that in high school Chris and Emily's friendship blossoms into something......
• Kurt Vonnegut “I do believe evolution is being controlled by some sort of divine engineer. I can’t help thinking that.. and this engineer knows exactly what he or she is doing and why and where evolution is headed and thats why we’ve got Giraffe’s and Hippopotami and the clap.”- Kurt Vonnegut......
• Book Review Blog Carnival #38 Many thanks to all the contributors in this edition of the Carnival. Novel Clark Bjorke presents The Highest Tide posted at I'll Never Forget the Day I Read a Book!. Jim Lynch's first novel is a magical realist coming of age story with a marine biology theme. Ranjita Patra......

• 450 Random Useless Facts [/caption] Most American car horns honk in the key of F. The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan." Barbie''s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. Every time you lick a stamp, you consume 1/10 of a calorie. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes. Studies......
• The Role of Romance in Thrillers by Cym Lowell, guest blogger and author of Riddle of Berlin. When a writer crafts a thriller, is there a role that romance should play in the plot?   This would be a great question for a creative writing class, along with other plot elements.  Why?  I can think......
• Obama At House Republican Retreat In Baltimore: FULL VIDEO, TEXT [/caption] Video of President Obama's remarks to the House Republican retreat in Baltimore on Friday, Jan. 29, 2010 and Q&A With GOP Lawmakers: Complete transcript of Obama's remarks as recorded by the White House: 12:10 P.M. EST THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Please, everybody be......
• Keep Readers Coming Back to Your Blog If you have a blog, you want to keep readers coming back. You can attract readers in a variety of ways, but keeping them is a little harder. You may end up high in the search engines for tons of keywords and pull in tons of unique page views. But......
• How to Say I Love You (Part 2) I just received a eulogy more impressive and profoundly fulfilling than any I ever could have imagined. I am overwhelmed. The words "I Love You" can be incredibly powerful. For many of us, forms of love are the only things that really drive us. While some struggle to say these......
• 'Catcher in the Rye' author J.D. Salinger dies [/caption] NEW YORK - J.D. Salinger, the legendary author, youth hero and fugitive from fame whose ``The Catcher in the Rye'' shocked and inspired a world he increasingly shunned, has died. He was 91. Salinger died of natural causes at his home on Wednesday, the author's son said in a......
• 500 More Useless Facts [/caption] Most American car horns honk in the key of F. The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan." Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. Every time you lick a stamp, you consume 1/10 of a calorie. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes. Studies......
• What NOT to Write: 10 Ways to Commit Romance Novel Suicide There are some things that just make it impossible to continue reading a book. So let's be blunt about the stuff that really ticks us off...like a lot. How many of these romance novel suicides have you run across? Have your heroine or hero willingly/actually cheat on the other.......
• Reader Highlight with Magdalen of Promantica Keira: You started Promantica late last year. Why did you start and what are some of your favorite posts that you’ve written so far? Magdalen: I'd been blogging about other things (my life generally, knitting, quilting, even local politics) for a while when I heard the April 2009 NPR......
• Taylor Swift Dishes On 'Mine' Video Love Interest Singer marries British actor Toby Hemingway in clip for the song, which will be the first single off her new LP.By Jocelyn Vena Taylor Swift Photo: Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images Taylor Swift is getting married. Well, at least she is in the new music video for her next single, "Mine." And......