A former eighth-grade English teacher, she has written about thirty novels built around moral and legal dilemmas, from a sister who sues for control of her own body to a nurse on trial for a newborn's death.
Molly Fitzgerald, who lost her mother on September 11, 2001, when she was two months old, runs emergency preparedness for Rhode Island, until an unexpected event shakes her marriage. It was published in the US and Canada on September 15, 2026.3
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Jodi Picoult was born in 1966 in Nesconset, New York, on Long Island; her mother and grandmother were both teachers, and she wrote her first story at age five.1 At Princeton she studied creative writing with the novelist Mary Morris, published two short stories in Seventeen while still a student, and graduated in 1987 with an A.B. in English after a 320-page senior thesis.1 She went on to earn an Ed.M. in teaching and curriculum from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1990.10
Before her books sold, she worked on Wall Street, in textbook publishing and at an advertising agency, then taught creative writing and eighth-grade English.11 Writing novels had always been her “Plan A,” she told Harvard’s education magazine; when a school system laid her off early in the year to cut costs, she finished the book she had been writing on the side, with a newborn at home.10 It took her three years to find an agent, she said, and she kept calling agencies after each rejection to ask who else might want the work.11 Songs of the Humpback Whale was published in 1992.1
Her novels turn on questions that trouble her: “I write about the things that are keeping me up at night because I don’t have the answers,” she told Harvard’s education magazine.10 Wikipedia lists among her subjects abortion, the Holocaust, assisted suicide, race, eugenics, LGBT rights, the death penalty and school shootings.1 Her classroom fed the books: The Pact (1998) drew on a student who kept a journal to cope with depression.10
My Sister’s Keeper (2004), about a girl conceived as a genetic match for her sister who sues her parents for control of her own body, became her best-known book and a 2009 film.1716 Nineteen Minutes (2007), about a school shooting, and Change of Heart (2008) each debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list, and Handle with Care (2009) and House Rules (2010) also reached No. 1.1 In 2007 she also wrote five issues of DC’s Wonder Woman.1
Small Great Things (2016) follows a Black labor and delivery nurse charged after a newborn whose white supremacist parents barred her from his care dies.4 A Spark of Light (2018) tells a hostage standoff at a Mississippi reproductive health clinic in reverse order, and Wish You Were Here (2021) strands a woman on a Galápagos island during the COVID-19 lockdown.51 She wrote Mad Honey (2022) with the novelist Jennifer Finney Boylan, and By Any Other Name (2024) argues that the poet Emilia Lanier wrote works credited to Shakespeare.1 With her daughter, Samantha van Leer, she wrote two young adult novels, Between the Lines (2012) and Off the Page (2015); a musical of the first opened Off-Broadway in 2022.91518 Her newest novel, Hollow Bones, came out on September 15, 2026.3
In March 2023, 20 of her books were removed for review by Florida’s Martin County School District after a single parent’s complaint, and Picoult criticized Moms for Liberty for seeking their removal.1 In 2024 she toured with Unite Against Book Bans, focusing on library censorship.1 She lives in New Hampshire with her husband.9
In order of first publication. Each series is kept together, in reading order, starting where its first book appeared. Titles from the bibliography on Picoult's official site; first-publication years from her Wikipedia bibliography, checked against the official book pages and, where they disagree, Kirkus Reviews' release dates.211314
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Collects her five issues of DC's Wonder Woman.1
Two young adult novels written with her daughter, Samantha van Leer.15
She gave the keynote conversation at the New Hampshire Book Festival, talking about Hollow Bones; New Hampshire Public Radio broadcast the recording on October 8.12
Hollow Bones, a novel about a daughter of a September 11 victim and the marriage she has built, was published in the US and Canada; the UK edition followed on November 5.3
A Lifetime original movie.1
A Lifetime original movie.1
A Lifetime original movie.1
Directed by Nick Cassavetes for New Line Cinema, with Cameron Diaz, Abigail Breslin and Alec Baldwin; it changes the novel's ending.16
A Lifetime original movie.1
A musical with a book by Timothy Allen McDonald and songs by Elyssa Samsel and Kate Anderson, directed by Jeff Calhoun; it ran Off-Broadway at Second Stage's Tony Kiser Theater until September 11, 2022.18
Born in Nesconset, New York.1
Graduates from Princeton with an A.B. in English, after a 320-page creative writing thesis.1
Earns an Ed.M. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.10
Publishes her first novel, Songs of the Humpback Whale.1
My Sister's Keeper is published.1
Nineteen Minutes debuts at No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list; she writes five issues of Wonder Woman for DC Comics.1
The film of My Sister's Keeper opens in US theaters.16
A musical of Between the Lines opens Off-Broadway at Second Stage's Tony Kiser Theater.18
Twenty of her books are removed for review by Florida's Martin County School District after a parent's complaint.1
Hollow Bones is published.3
Hollow Bones (2026) is the newest book on her official bibliography; no next novel has been announced there.2