Paula McLain

Paula McLain (born October 7, 1965) is an internationally acclaimed American novelist, poet, and memoirist whose meticulously researched historical fiction and atmospheric psychological mysteries have sold millions of copies worldwide. Born in Fresno, California, she endured a chaotic childhood within the foster care system—an experience she later bared in her critically praised 2004 memoir, Like Family: Growing Up in Other People’s Houses—before earning her Master of Fine Arts in poetry from the University of Michigan in 1996. After publishing two acclaimed collections of verse and her debut novel, A Ticket to Ride, McLain vaulted into global literary superstardom with her 2011 blockbuster masterpiece, The Paris Wife. The dazzling, multi-million-copy bestseller, told from the perspective of Hadley Richardson, captured the vibrant tragedy of Ernest Hemingway’s first marriage in 1920s Paris and established McLain as a premier architect of biographical historical fiction. Renowned for giving a powerful, emotionally complex voice to forgotten women adjacent to history's giants, her stellar track record includes successive New York Times bestsellers such as Circling the Sun (following pioneer aviator Beryl Markham) and Love and Ruin (tracking war correspondent Martha Gellhorn). Showing phenomenal artistic versatility, she executed a highly successful genre reinvention with her thriller debut, When the Stars Go Dark, a suspenseful, trauma-informed mystery following a missing-persons detective in Northern California. Recipient of fellowships from the Yaddo Corporation and the National Endowment for the Arts, she continues to write full-time from her home base in Cleveland, Ohio, delivering keynote lectures at creative writing conferences and mentoring emerging authors.