Jennifer Niven

Jennifer Niven was raised in Indiana. She attended college in New Jersey and then earned a graduate degree in Los Angeles. Niven’s mother, writer Penelope Niven, inspired and encouraged Niven to write throughout her childhood and into her adult years. Niven published her first book, a nonfiction work called The Ice Master: The Doomed 1913 Voyage of the Karluk, in 2000. Following this, Niven wrote several adult novels and nonfiction books. In 2013, immediately after finishing an adult novel, Niven had an idea for a young adult novel and wrote the ensuing book, All the Bright Places, over the course of six weeks. The book was inspired by a boyfriend Niven had in her 20s who, like Finch, suffered from undiagnosed bipolar disorder and ultimately committed suicide. After publishing All the Bright Places, Niven created the online Germ Magazine based off of the fictional magazine that Violet starts in the novel. Through Germ and All the Bright Places, Niven hopes to give young people a safe, supportive space—and to chip away at the stigma surrounding mental illness. All the Bright Places has won a number of awards and was adapted into a Netflix movie starring Elle Fanning in 2020. Since the publication of All the Bright Places, Niven has turned her attention away from writing adult novels and has written more young adult fiction, including Holding Up the Universe and Breathless. She splits her time between California and Georgia and lives with her husband, children, and cats.