‘I’m one of the most banned authors in America’

The best-selling novelist on learning her craft, meeting her idols and dealing with sexist stereotypes

Born on Long Island, New York in 1966, Jodi Picoult studied creative writing at Princeton, before embarking on a successful career as a full-time novelist. Since then she has published 30 novels and short stories, as well as numerous issues of the Wonder Woman comic. Several of her novels, most notably My Sister’s Keeper, have been adapted into films. With approximately 40 million copies of her books in print, Picoult is one of the best-selling living novelists. She lives with her husband in New Hampshire and has three adult children. 
It’s a little bit like learning to ride a bike with the training wheels. As part of that course, I did a creative thesis and was mentored by a writer called Mary Morris who taught me how to move from a contained space like a short story into a novel. It’s a big change and to be able to do that with someone who can show you the ropes is much easier than trying to figure it out on your own. My first book was that creative thesis. It’s in a basement library somewhere at Princeton and we can only hope no one will ever uncover it. It wasn’t very good but it was important for me to learn to write a novel before I wrote my first one which got published. 
The book I keep recommending to everyone is one called Molly Malloy And The Angel Of Death by Maria Vale. It’s a very short book about Death, who has been sent to Earth as punishment by all the other supreme beings who make up the universe. In the first scene, Death is going to collect a soul in the hospital. There’s an old lady in bed and her granddaughter beside her, eating hot chicken wings. As he goes to collect the old lady’s soul, he smacks her granddaughter on the back, which a) saves her from choking and b) allows her to see him. He realises too late that he took the wrong soul – it was the girl who was supposed to die. It’s a book about what it means to be human and what are the important things about living a human life. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it was so unique and for all those reasons, I can’t stop pushing it into people’s hands. 
It’s By Any Other Name. I know people always say that their newest book is their favourite, but I truly believe the last 35 years of my career have led me to writing this particular book. I’ve been very outspoken about gender discrimination in publishing and ultimately the story of Aemilia Bassano (who is a real life figure who some think might have written some of Shakespeare’s plays) is one about gender discrimination. It’s a personal book because although I write about controversial things a lot, I’m not often living those controversies. This book is about how women are judged differently than men and that is something I face almost every day, even at this point in my career. 
Being in touch with readers. I get around 100 emails per day from readers and I answer them all. When a reader tells you that ‘this book came to me at a moment in my life that I really needed it and I decided that I wasn’t going to pick up a gun and shoot up a school’ or ‘I was really depressed and this book helped me get through that’ or ‘I used to read all your books with my mother and she died but now every time I read one of your books it reminds me of her’ – those things are immeasurably moving. 
Margaret Atwood. She is so brilliant. Even in her eighties, she’s a firecracker. We met at an event run by Amazon and she introduced herself. I didn’t think she’d know who I was, much less have read my books, so that was mind-blowing. The other one that comes to mind is my childhood idol, Judy Bloom. When I was a kid my mom didn’t let me read her book Forever because it had too much sex, so I never read it. I told Judy and she sent me a signed copy, writing “tell your mom I said you can read this now” in it. 
The last one, 2023. I was looking forward to it because for the first time ever I wasn’t going to have to cook. The plan was to celebrate with my son, his husband, and my grandson. My daughter was due to give birth on the 23rd, so our plan was to go and meet our new granddaughter for New Year. But my daughter went into labour early and there was a complication and the baby had to go into neonatal intensive care. My daughter was depressed, sad, and scared – she blamed herself for this freak occurrence. So I flew overnight to be with her. While she slept I went to the neonatal unit to look after my granddaughter. Doctors and nurses were coming in and taking wires and tubes off her, and by the time my daughter could come upstairs, the baby was okay. You could see the sun breaking over her face when she realised she could hold her daughter. It was a stressful Christmas. I did wind up cooking Christmas dinner. Nothing worked out the way we thought it would, but I have a new, healthy, happy granddaughter. 
God, I’ve had so many! I’m one of the most banned authors in America, mostly because some poorly worded laws have allowed parents in certain states to decide not only what their own children should be taught in school, but also what other people’s children should be taught. I’ve had a lot of criticism of my new book from Shakespeare scholars who were incensed – having not read the book – that I could imagine a woman might be capable of writing some of Shakespeare’s plays. I had a lot of response to my book Wish You Were Here because I mentioned that Donald Trump was president when the pandemic began which is true. One person wrote to me “you and your ridiculous curls should just shut up” which made me burst out laughing. My curly hair was the worst insult he could think of? It was such a nasty letter but to end with that just made it feel so stupid.
Being judged by my gender and not my writing. There’s an assumption that if a woman says she’s a fiction writer then she either writes romance or children’s books. If a man writes a book about a family or relationship, it would be called ‘fiction’. When I do it, it gets called ‘chick lit’. That’s a fine genre, but it isn’t what I write. The assumption that a female writer must write only for women is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. I once spent a year tracking the letters and emails I received from readers and it was about 50/50. There are some famous male authors who I’d say are more “women’s fiction” writers than I’ve ever been, but they never get described as such.
It was with The Notebook author Nicholas Sparks. He and I were at a big book expo, sitting next to each other signing books for about an hour. I was a fairly young author at the time, only on my fifth or sixth book, but afterwards my editor introduced me to him. She said “this will be character building…” When she introduced me to Nick he just said “and what do you do?” I couldn’t believe it. I’d been sitting next to him for the last hour. That really set the stage for our professional relationship. Every time we’ve crossed paths he has never failed to disappoint me. I don’t mind saying that, he wouldn’t care – he probably considers me beneath his contempt and that’s fine with me.
Needing a big social media following. It’s important that your readers get to know you outside of what is on the book jacket because it’s an intimate relationship between a reader and a writer, and social media, to its benefit, allows you to regulate that. But I also feel like there’s this X-Factor-isation of publishing. Nowadays, in order to get a book deal, you also suddenly need a media following, a presence on social media, a persona that people get to know. You’re judged on the number of followers rather than your writing talent. For a lot of writers who are introverts, that’s hard.
I hate a suckerpunch. I hate a deus ex machina. I hate when a twist doesn’t lay the groundwork. A writer can pull off a twist that you didn’t see coming, and I try to do it in almost every book, but I also leave a paper trail so you can go back and see what you’ve missed. 
It’s so satisfying to see things you’ve missed. That’s the difference between good writing and bad writing for me. 
Jodi Picoult’s By Any Other Name is out now, published by Penguin. 
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