E. Lockhart

E. Lockhart is the pen name of Emily Jenkins (born 1967), an American author best known for young adult fiction, including the bestselling We Were Liars series. Lockhart's breakout early work, the Ruby Oliver Quartet (2005-2010) and The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (2008), established her voice for wry, socially sharp contemporary YA before We Were Liars (2014) shifted her into psychological suspense and became a word-of-mouth bestseller. She followed it with a prequel, Family of Liars (2022), and a same-world companion novel, We Fell Apart (2025), released alongside an Amazon Prime Video television adaptation of We Were Liars that she produced. Her pen name comes from her maternal grandmother's family name. Under her given name, Emily Jenkins, she has separately written picture books and adult fiction; as E. Lockhart she has stayed focused on YA and young-readers work, including the 2021 DC graphic novel Whistle: A New Gotham City Hero and a 2008 co-written road-trip novel, How to Be Bad, with fellow YA authors Sarah Mlynowski and Lauren Myracle. Lockhart's honors include a National Book Award finalist nod and a Printz Honor for Frankie Landau-Banks. She continues to publish new work, with the standalone novel The Pools scheduled for October 2026.