American authors: Lisa Scottoline - by Claudia Reynolds

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by Claudia Reynolds

Created on: January 23, 2013 Last Updated: January 28, 2013

Lisa Scottoline was born on July 1, 1955, in Philadelphia. She has been called the female John Grisham and is another lawyer-turned-best-selling author.

Scottoline graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 1976, with a bachelors degree in English before beginning her graduate work in law. In 1981, she graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. While attending, she was an associate editor for the “University of Pennsylvania Law Review.”

Her first job after graduation was working as a law clerk for President Judge Edmund B. Spaeth, Jr. of the Pennsylvania Superior Court. She became an associate at the prestigious law firm of Dechert, Price and Rhoads in Philadelphia when her clerkship ended. Scottoline has been quoted as saying that motherhood was her most important job and the accomplishment of which she is most proud. She left the law firm in 1986 to spend more time with her newborn daughter. During this time, she began writing the fiction that would make her a best-selling author.

It wasn’t until 1994 that Scottoline returned to working in law, when she took a position as an administrative law clerk to Chief Judge Dolores K. Sloviter of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. In this same year, her fist novel, “Everywhere That Mary Went” was published by HarperCollins Publishers. The book went on to become a bestseller and was nominated for the coveted Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award. The following year, she won the Edgar.

Scottoline’s body of work includes 19 legal suspense novels, with another novel to be released in the summer of 2013. She has also written several shorter works of fiction and has sold all nine of her Rosatto and Associates novels to Fox TV Studio for development into a TV series. She has sold more than 25 million copies of her books and is published in more than 32 countries.

She and daughter Francesca Serritella co-write a weekly column, “Chick Wit,” for the “Philadelphia Inquirer.” Serritella graduated cum laude from Harvard University and is currently working on a novel. The column offers a humorous slant on life from the female perspective. Columns from “Chick Wit” have been published in “Meet Me at Emotional Baggage Claim,” “Best Friends, Occasional Enemies,” “Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog” and “My Nest Isn't Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space."

According to her website, Lisa Scottoline, claims she puts much of her own personality into her books and says “that she is an incredibly generous person, an engaging and entertaining speaker, a die-hard Eagles fan, and a good cook. She loves the color pink, her Ipod has everything from U2 to Sinatra to 50 Cent, she is proud to be an American, and nothing makes her happier than spending time with her daughter.”

Scottoline resides in a farmhouse in Pennsylvania, along with several dogs, cats, horses and chickens.

Scottoline’s 19 bestselling fiction novels are:

"Everywhere That Mary Went" (1994)

Final Appeal" (1995)

"Running From the Law" (1996)

"Legal Tender" (1997)

"Rough Justice" (1998)

"Mistaken Identity" (1999)

"Moment of Truth" (2000)

"The Vendetta Defense" (2001)

"Courting Trouble" (2002)

"Dead Ringer" (2003)