Lisa Scottoline

Lisa Scottoline is the author of 16 novels and also writes the weekly column Chick Wit for The Philadelphia Inquirer – a collection of which was published in Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog. A single mother, Scottoline worked as an attorney until the birth of her daughter, when she switched careers and began writing fiction. Her first novel was published in 1994 and she has published a novel every year since, most recently Look Again, which was chosen as one of the "best novels of the year" by The Washington Post. Her books regularly appear on national bestseller lists, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, and Publisher's Weekly. Most recently, she has published a book of nonfiction with her daughter Francesca, titled The Nest Isn't Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space: The Amazing Adventures of an Ordinary Woman.

Scottoline has won many honors and awards, notably the Edgar Award given for excellence in crime fiction, and was named a "PW Innovator" by Publishers Weekly. She also teaches Justice and Fiction, a course she created as an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and has served as the Leo Goodwin Professor of Law and Popular Culture at Nova Southeastern Law School.

Also a book critic, Scottoline's reviews appear in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Philadelphia Inquirer, and she has also contributed short stories and serial chapters to anthologies in support of breast cancer and The Nature Conservancy. She is a regular guest on television and lectures around the country, primarily in support of libraries. There are 25 million copies of her books in print and she is published in 23 other countries.

A magna cum laude graduate from the University of Pennsylvania, Scottoline finished with a BA in English within three years. While at Penn, she concentrated in Contemporary American Fiction, which was taught by Philip Roth and others. She graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she served as an Associate Editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review and won the Henry Laughlin Prize for Legal Ethics.