E.L. Konigsburg

Born as Elaine Lobl, she became known as E.L. Konigsburg to many children all over the world when she started writing her children’s books. E.L. Konigsburg has won the Newbery Medal for her book, From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. She went on to write other cherished books such as, Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth, and, The View from Saturday. Interestingly, this second book, The View from Saturday, also won the Newberry Medal twenty nine years later. To this day the time span between her first Newberry Award and her second remains the longest span of time for one author to receive the award.

Konigsburg’s stories are often described as having the angst and true feelings of the child and the adolescent within them. It is believed that many of her stories came about from situations that resembled her own childhood. She has a knack for creating characters that seem to be confident on the outside, however are frightened of the world and peers around them. Konigsburg has stated that she had many of these feelings of wanting to act, and be, like everyone else, yet also wanting the opposite of being an individual as well. She understands this with impeccable poignancy.

Konigsburg was the first to earn a degree in her family. She attended the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, majoring in chemistry. It wasn’t until after getting married, having children and then time on her hands when the kids went to school that she decided to take up writing.