Jacquelyn Mitchard

Jacquelyn Mitchard’s first novel, The Deep End of the Ocean, was named by USA Today as one of the ten most influential books of the past 25 years – second only to the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling (but second by a long shot, it must be said.) The Deep End of the Ocean was chosen as the first novel in the book club made famous by the TV host Oprah Winfrey, and transformed into a feature film produced by and starring Michelle Pfeiffer. Most of Mitchard’s novels have been greater or lesser bestsellers – and include The Most Wanted, A Theory of Relativity, Twelve Times Blessed, The Breakdown Lane, The Good Son, and Cage of Stars. Critics have praised them for their authentic humanity and command of story. Readers identify because they see reflected, in her characters – however extreme their circumstances – emotions they already understand. Mitchard also has written four novels for young adults. The first, Now You See Her, from HarperTeen, is the story of a pampered, driven young actress who fakes her own abduction. All We Know of Heaven told the story of lifetime best friends Bridget and Maureen, who are just sixteen when a fatal crash on an icy road and a poignant case of mistaken identity divide their small Minnesota town forever. The Midnight Twins was the first in a trilogy of teen mysteries about identical twin sisters born on New Year’s Eve – one a minute before and a minute after midnight – Meredith and Mallory Brynn learn on the night they turn thirteen that their psychic abilities will force them to intervene in dire events, although one twin can see only the future and one can see only the past. The Midnight Twins is in development as a TV series by Kaleidoscope Entertainment. Mitchard's newest novel for adult, A Very Inconvenient Scandal, out in November 2023 from Mira/HarperCollins, is the story of an acclaimed young underwater photographer whose famed marine biologist father shatters their family by marrying her best friend., a woman 35 years his junior. At the local coffee shop, Mitchard is best-known as the mother of Rob, Dan, Marty, Francie, Mia, Will and Atticus , as the grandma of Hank and Diana and the wife of handsome Chris Brent. Her favorite color is periwinkle blue; her favorite holiday is Halloween; her favorite flower is freesia; her favorite word is "smite," and her second favorite is "Massachusetts"; her lucky number is 119 (anyone who can guess where that comes from wins free first editions of her novels for life). She lives in her favorite place on earth, Cape Cod, summering in a villa on the Amalfi Coast. (Guess which part of that sentence is fiction.) Her essays have appeared in publications including the New York Times, Chicago Tribune Magazine and Reader's Digest, and are widely anthologized and used in school curricula. She has taught in MFA programs in Vermont, Ohio, and Massachusetts, and is part of the faculty at the Summer Writers Institute at Yale University. She is a member of the Tall Poppies Writers and has been a fellow at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Ragdale Foundation. Her pet peeves are known authors and editors who cannot and will not learn the difference between “lie” and “lay” and family signs pluralized with apostrophes. She would love to appear on just ONE episode of any incarnation of ‘Law and Order,’ as has everyone else in America. She still is willing to play the role of a murder victim – except one found by earth-moving equipment in a landfill – though she would do that in a pinch. Mitchard would like to have a swimming pool, because, although she lives near the ocean, she is afraid of the dark water and hates sand. She would love to have a clawfoot tub, or any tub. She believes that stories are the ways that human beings make sense of life and that our stories will save us.