Janet Fitch was born in Los Angeles, a third-generation native. In 1978, she graduated from Reed College with a degree in history, and studied Russian history at Keele University in England. After deciding to write fiction, she began publishing short stories in literary journals, briefly attended film school at USC, and worked as a typesetter, proofreader, graphic artist, freelance journalist, and as managing editor of American Film magazine, and the editor of The Mancos Times Tribune, a weekly newspaper in Colorado. Fitch published her first story in 1990, after twelve years of writing and hundreds of rejections. Her short story `White Oleander' was named as a distinguished story in Best American Short Stories 1994, and Fitch developed the story into her first novel. The story of an adolescent girl's travails in a series of Los Angeles foster homes after her brilliant poet mother is incarcerated for murder, the book was chosen as a featured selection of Oprah's Book Club, sold nearly a million copies, and was developed into a 2001 movie. Fitch currently teaches fiction writing privately in Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband and daughter.