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author

Photo copyright Heather Weston

I am the author of three Ruby Oliver books: The Boyfriend List, The Boy Book, and The Treasure Map of Boys — plus a fourth, Real Live Boyfriends, that comes out December 28, 2010. Other books: Fly on the Wall, Dramarama, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks and How to Be Bad.

Disreputable History was a Printz Award honor book, a finalist for the National Book Award, and recipient of the Cybils Award for best young adult novel.

My books have been translated into 10 foreign languages. Or maybe more. I have a doctorate in English Literature from Columbia University and have taught composition, literature and creative writing courses at Columbia, Barnard and NYU. I have given guest lectures on writing for children at places which include Hamline University, VT College, and Kindling Words.

Twenty-one things you don’t know about me, even if you’ve read through this whole website:

  • I have wanted to be a writer since I was eight years old.
  • I wrote two novels in third grade.
  • I was the fastest typist in my 8th-grade typing class. We learned on manual typewriters.
  • Now I write everything on computer, sometimes with my eyes closed.
  • Favorite lipsticks: Bobbi Brown Cherry. Clinique Black Honey.
  • Movie star crush: Daniel Craig.
  • First car: a white 1964 Volvo with a push-button starter.
  • I make a lot of home movies. You can see the book-related ones here.
  • I am a vegetarian and for a number of years ate a vegan diet (no animal products whatsoever) because I object to the way animals are treated in the meat and dairy industries. I will probably go back to eating vegan again someday, but for now:
  • My favorite ice cream is Häagen Dazs dolce de leche.
  • I swam with sting-rays once.
  • I like wax museums.
  • I used to like roller coasters, but now I’m scared of them. Even so:
  • I love amusement parks. My favorite ride of all time is Pirates of the Caribbean.
  • I used to cry after my fiction writing class in college, because the criticism was so harsh.
  • The teacher of that class was so bored by my work he admitted to me he didn’t even read the final drafts of my stories.
  • I have never kept a journal for more than a couple days. I like to write for an audience, even if it’s only an imaginary one.
  • My advice to aspiring writers: read, read, read. Read the great novelists, especially. Try Great Expectations. Pride and Prejudice. Jane Eyre.
  • More (contradictory!) advice: follow your reading bliss. Gnaw your way through the local library’s sci-fi or romance collection, if that’s what does it for you.
  • I am difficult to recognize. Despite a large and unusual tattoo, people often forget they’ve met me, or tell me I look very different from the last time they saw me.
  • I used to not reveal my first name, just to be mysterious, but then I had to change my website URL. I couldn’t have e-lockhart or elockhart because they were taken or infected by spambots; emilylockhart was the best address available, so now everyone knows it.


(This list is an idea I got from a very cool interview with Libba Bray, author of A Great and Terrible Beauty and Going Bovine.)

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