Lois Duncan's Biography

Lois Duncan was born in Philadelphia, PA, and grew up in Sarasota, FL.

She knew from early childhood that she wanted to be a writer. She submitted her first story to a magazine at age 10 and became published at 13. Throughout her teens she wrote regularly for young people's publications, particularly Seventeen.

As an adult, Lois moved to Albuquerque, NM, where she taught for the Journalism Department at the University of New Mexico and continued to write for magazines. Over 300 of her articles and stories appeared in such publications as Ladies Home Journal, Redbook, McCall's, Good Housekeeping, and Reader's Digest, and for many years she was a contributing editor for Woman's Day.

Lois is the author of over 50 books, ranging from children's picture books to adult novels, but is best known for her young adult suspense novels, which have received Young Readers Awards in 16 states and three foreign countries. In 1992, Lois was awarded the Margaret A. Edwards Award, presented by the School Library Journal and the ALA Young Adult Library Services Association for "a distinguished body of adolescent literature."

Five of her novels – Summer of Fear; Killing Mr. Griffin; Gallows Hill; Ransom and Don’t Look Behind You -- were filmed for television, and I Know What You Did Last Summer and Hotel for Dogs were theatrical productions.

Although young people are most familiar with Lois’s fictional suspense novels, adults may know her best as the author of Who Killed My Daughter?, the true story of the murder of Kaitlyn Arquette, the youngest of Lois and her husband, Don Arquette’s, five children. Kait's story has been featured on such TV shows as Unsolved Mysteries, Good Morning America, Larry King Live, Sally Jessy Raphael and Inside Edition. The family’s on-going personal investigation of this still unsolved case is chronicled at http://kaitarquette.arquettes.com.