Lauren Oliver (born Laura Suzanne Schechter; November 8, 1982) is an American author of numerous young adult novels including Panic; the Delirium trilogy: Delirium, Pandemonium, and Requiem; and Before I Fall, which became a major motion picture in 2017. Panic was also turned into a series by Amazon studios. She served as creator, writer and showrunner on the project. Her novels have been translated into more than thirty languages internationally. Oliver is a 2012 E.B. White Read-Aloud Award nominee for her middle-grade novel Liesl & Po, as well as author of the middle-grade fantasy novel The Spindlers.
Oliver graduated from the University of Chicago, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and also received a Master of Fine Arts degree from New York University. In 2010, Oliver co-founded Paper Lantern Lit, a literary “incubator”/ development company now called Glasstown Entertainment with Razorbill editor and poet Lexa Hillyer.
Early life
Oliver was born in Queens. She was both an avid reader and writer: "I come from a family of writers, and so have always (mistakenly) believed that spending hours in front of the computer every day, mulling over the difference between 'chortling: and 'chuckling' is normal. As a child, after finishing a book, I would continue to write a sequel for its characters, because I did not want to have to give them up."
As she continued in her writing, Oliver eventually made the switch to writing her own stories and characters, with some success. However, writing was not Oliver's only passion; she also enjoyed taking ballet, drawing, painting, making collages, singing, acting, experimenting with cooking, and (as she put it), "(trying) to spend my time being as creative and useless as possible."
After finishing high school and moving on to the University of Chicago, Oliver revealed, "I continued to be as impractical as possible by majoring in philosophy and literature... inadvertently aided and abetted in my mission by my older sister, Lizzie, who pursued a Ph.D. in philosophy and cognitive science. This eventually led our parents to resign themselves to the fact that their children would never be lawyers, doctors, or even gainfully employed."
Career and novels
Oliver's first book, Before I Fall, was published on March 2, 2010, by HarperCollins in the United States, and by Hodder & Stoughton in the United Kingdom. The book follows Sam, a teenage girl, who has to go through the last day of her life seven times and each time learns new values and the mysteries surrounding her death. Oliver has said that she wrote all of the book on her BlackBerry while she went to meetings on the subway. She would e-mail herself the chapters to later work on them some more.
Open Road Films released the film version in theatres on March 3, 2017, with Zoey Deutch portraying the main character, Samantha Kingston.
Oliver's second book, Delirium, is the first in her dystopian trilogy. Oliver's first novella, Hana, was released after Delirium and shows Hana's perspective on the events of Delirium. The trilogy's second book, Pandemonium, was released on February 28, 2012. Another novella, Annabel, was released on December 26, 2012 as an e-book and has events before those unfolding in Delirium such as details the story of Lena's mother prior to the events.
The third and final book of the trilogy, Requiem, was published on March 5, 2013. A third novella, Raven, was published along with the third book, Requiem, on March 5, 2013 as an e-book and follows Raven on her life and adventures between the events of Pandemonium and Requiem. On March 5, 2013, all three of the novellas (Hana, Annabel, and Raven) were released together in a softcover book.
Oliver's first middle-grade book, about a girl who is visited by a ghost who says her dead father is stuck in Limbo and that only she can help him over, was published on September 1, 2011. Her second middle-grade book, The Spindlers, tells the story of a young girl, Liza, who travels into a fantastical underworld to rescue her younger brother from the sinister creatures. The book was released on August 2, 2012.