Give Me Your Hand (Abbott) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—1971
• Where—near Detroit, Michigan, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Michigan; Ph.D., New York University
• Awards—Edgar Award for Outstanding Fiction
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York


Megan Abbott is an American author of crime fiction and a non-fiction analyst of hardboiled crime fiction. Her novels and short stories have drawn from and re-worked classic subgenres of crime writing, with a female twist.

Abbott grew up in suburban Detroit and graduated from the University of Michigan. She is married to Joshua Gaylord, a New School professor who writes fiction under his own name and the pseudonym "Alden Bell."

Abbott was influenced by film noir, classic noir fiction, and Jeffrey Eugenides's novel The Virgin Suicides. Two of her novels reference notorious crimes. The Song is You (2007) is based around the disappearance of Jean Spangler in 1949, and Bury Me Deep (2009) is based on the 1931 case of Winnie Ruth Judd, who was dubbed the "Trunk Murderess."

Abbott has won the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award for outstanding fiction. Time named her one of the "23 Authors That We Admire" in 2011.