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J.L. Esplin is the award-winning author of 96 Miles, a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, nominated for more than 15 state book awards, and winner of the William Allen White Children’s Book Award, the Truman Readers Award, Nevada Young Readers’ Award, and Mississippi’s Magnolia Book Award. She lives in Las Vegas, Nevada on the edge of town with her husband and kids, and is currently working on her next novel for Starscape (Tor/MacMillan). When not writing, she enjoys teaching guitar the fun way, traveling to new places, and coming back home to the desert.

She is represented by Andrea Somberg, literary agent at Harvey Klinger Inc..

For inquires, please contact Andrea Somberg at andrea@harveyklinger.com

Extended Bio:

JL Esplin lived in four different states by the time she turned 13. As an adult, she moved back to the place she was born, Las Vegas, Nevada, and immediately knew she was home. She lives on the edge of town with her husband and kids. When not writing, she enjoys teaching guitar the fun way, traveling to new places, and coming back home to the desert.

Growing up in a family of six kids, her dad, a US Secret Service agent, was passionate about emergency preparedness. They had food and water storage that took up half the garage, emergency backpacks with survival gear in the hall closet. And the family slept soundly each night knowing that, in the event of a house fire, Dad had secured a rope to the foot of each bed with which they could escape their second-story bedroom windows. It was important to him that his kids were self-reliant, and on that note, he gave her and her siblings a survival tip that she never forgot: If you’re ever in a desperate situation, it’s okay to drink the water in the toilet, you just have to boil it first.

After years spent contemplating this revolting bit of advice, imagining scenarios in which she might have to drink toilet water, wondering if she’d be willing to do something like that to survive, she sat down and wrote the first sentence of her debut novel, 96 Miles.