Jodi Picoult Has Written Almost 30 Books. Here’s Why Her Newest Is the ‘One I Was Meant to Write’ (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Tim Llewellyn; Penguin Random House

Jodi Picoulthas written 29 books over her three-decade career and has finally landed on the one she feels destined to write. “I don’t know if I believe in reincarnation,” says the author, 58. “But I feel like this is the story that I was meant to tell.”

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Diving into the age-old controversy surrounding Shakespeare’s authorship isn’t that far afield for Picoult, whose previous novels have taken on hot-button topics like abortion, racism, school shootings and much more.

Penguin Random House

And even though such notable figures asHelen Keller, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain and even someSupreme Court justicesall ascribe to the theory that Shakespeare didn’t work alone, she’s already drawing heat from some academics who call her a “conspiracy theorist.”

“There’s an extra level when you posit that it could have been a woman,” Picoult adds. “I didn’t write this book because I am a raging lunatic. I wrote this book because this is the information that I found. And it certainly convinced me.”

“How do you explain the fact that when the guy died, he did not own a single book? There was not any unfinished manuscript or papers lying around, nothing in his will,” she continues. “And when he died, not a single other playwright of the time said, ‘Oh, what a loss!’ … I kept thinking it would actually be stranger if Shakespearehadwritten all of these plays.”

Tim Llewellyn

While she admits the topic gets her fired-up, that’s also not new for the author, who has to “be kept up at night” in order for an idea to become a novel.

“For me to write the best book that I can … I need to write about something that is upsetting me,” she explains. Her own experiences writing for the stage inspired her to turn it into a dual-timeline story that also follows a modern-day woman trying to break into the male-dominated field and the issues she encounters along the way. “I wanted to talk about how little has changed in 400 years,” she says.

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But just like her characters, Picoult doesn’t let the haters get her down. “I’m not here to convince you. I’m here to lay out everything I learned and let you make your own decisions,” she explains. “If we can open up one mind, then a book is worth it.”

source: people.com