Why I chose E. Lockhart:

I’m drawn to every single element of Lockhart’s books. I love her writing style, the narrative voices, the clever banter, and the way she can take totally ordinary plots (like just following a teenage girl—Ruby Oliver—through her high school travails) and make them memorable.

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks and the Ruby Oliver Quartet are my favorite (so I’m saying that more than half of the YA books she’s written fall under the category of “my favorite”? Yes, yes I am). Frankie is hard at work being a manipulative feminist prankster. Ruby is anxiously flailing her way through all of her relationships. And I’m riveted by both of these characters. Her characters are not perfect. They’re awkward and weird and I love them for that. These books look at what it means to be a teenage girl and the challenges and relationships that come with this time.

Brief biography (taken from the FAQ on her website; see the FAQ for more details, as well as her bio page for 21 facts about her):
Lockhart was born in New York City in 1967. She grew up in Cambridge, MA and Seattle, WA. She went to college at Vassar and grad school at Columbia. She has a doctorate in English literature with a focus on 19th century British novel and the history of British book illustration. She lives in the New York City area. She’s a full-time writer and teaches in a low-residency MFA program in Writing for Children at Hamline University.