I am the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers We Were Liars and Family of Liars.

The We Were Liars TV show comes out in 2025 from Prime Video. My novel We Fell Apart publishes in 2025 as well.

I invented a superhero for DC Comics: Whistle: A New Gotham City Hero.

Other novels: Again Again, Genuine Fraud,   Fly on the Wall, Dramarama, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks and the Ruby Oliver quartet: The Boyfriend List, The Boy Book,  The Treasure Map of Boys, and Real Live Boyfriends. How to Be Bad was co-written with Lauren Myracle and Sarah Mlynowski.

Disreputable History was a Printz Award honor book and a finalist for the National Book Award. We Were Liars  won the Goodreads Choice Award and was Amazon's #1 YA novel of 2014. Genuine Fraud is a Times bestseller and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times book prize.

I have a doctorate in English literature from Columbia University. My field was 19th-century British novel.  In 2013 I chaired the committee on Young People's Literature for the National Book Awards. 

Doing a school report? Everything you need (and all the info I ever share with the public) is on the Students page. Teachers, there are educational materials on the Teachers page.

  • Film & TV Representation: Kassie Evashevski at Anonymous Content.

  • School events and speaking engagements: visit the Penguin Random House Speaker's Bureau or email Eleanor Rummell there — erummell@penguinrandomhouse.com

  • Interviews and publicity: Jillian Vandall at Penguin Random House — jvandall@penguinrandomhouse.com

  • Whistle and DC Comics inquiries only: Clark Bull at DC — clark.bull@ dcentertainment.com

photo credit:  Heather Weston

 

 

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

1. I have wanted to be a writer since I was eight years old.
2. I wrote two novels in third grade.
3. I was the fastest typist in my 8th-grade typing class. We learned on manual typewriters.
4. Now I write everything on computer, sometimes with my eyes closed.
5. Favorite lipstick: L’Oreal 315.
6. Movie star crush: Daniel Craig.
7. First car: a white 1964 Volvo with a push-button starter.
8. I have read a lot of books about sideshow history.
9. I have two tattoos.
10. My favorite ice cream is Häagen Dazs dolce de leche.
11. I swam with sting-rays once.
12. I like wax museums.
13. I used to like roller coasters, but now I’m scared of them. Even so:
14. I love amusement parks. My favorite ride of all time is the Haunted Mansion.
15. I used to cry after my fiction writing class in college, because the criticism was so harsh.
16. 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.
17. 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.
18. My advice to aspiring writers: read, read, read. Read great novelists, especially.
19. 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.
20. I am difficult to recognize. People often forget they’ve met me, or tell me I look very different from the last time they saw me.
21. Lockhart was my maternal grandmother’s maiden name.