Emily Jenkins (born September 13, 1967), who sometimes uses the pen name E. Lockhart, is an American writer of children's picture books, young-adult novels, and adult fiction. She is known best for the Ruby Oliver quartet (which begins with The Boyfriend List), The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, and We Were Liars.

Personal life

Jenkins grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Seattle, Washington. In high school, she attended summer drama schools at Northwestern University and the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis. She attended Lakeside School, a private high school in North Seattle. She went to Vassar College, where she studied illustrated books and interviewed Barry Moser for her senior thesis, and she attended graduate school at Columbia University, where she earned a doctorate in English literature.

Writer

Jenkins writes as E. Lockhart, for the young adult market. “Lockhart" was the family name of her maternal grandmother. Her first book with the pen name, Lockhart, was the novel, The Boyfriend List, published, in 2005, by Random House Dell Delacorte Press. There are three sequels, The Boy Book (2006), The Treasure Map of Boys (2009), and Real Live Boyfriends (2010), and the four are also known, collectively, as the Ruby Oliver novels, after their central protagonist. Another novel for teens, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (2008), was a finalist for both the National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the Michael L. Printz Award. We Were Liars made the shortlist of four books for the 2014 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. The annual prize, judged by British children's writers, recognizes the year's best U.K. published book by a writer who has not previously won it. Under her real name, Jenkins has collaborated with illustrators to produce children's books and picture books. They have received honors, including the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Book Award (the original Toys Go Out, illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky) and two runners-up for Boston Globe–Horn Book Award (Five Creatures, illus. Tomek Bogacki, and That New Animal, illus. Pierre Pratt).

Works

Children's books by Emily Jenkins

Adult books by Emily Jenkins

Young-adult books by E. Lockhart

Ruby Oliver series

Liars set

As a co-author

Awards