Matt Raymond from the Library of Congress speaks with Jodi Picoult, who will appear at the 2009 National Book Festival in the Fiction & Fantasy pavilion on September 26, 2009, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Biography

Jodi Picoult studied creative writing in college and had two short stories published in Seventeen magazine while still a student. 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 eighth-grade English teacher before pursuing a master’s in education. She wrote her first novel, “Songs of the Humpback Whale,” in 1992, while she was pregnant with her first child. She is now the author of 15 best-sellers, including her latest, “Handle with Care” (2009).