James Patterson Biography

James Patterson is today best known as the author behind the character Alex Cross, whose psychological expertise helps to nail the killer in films such as Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider. He is also one of the era’s best-selling authors, with record e-book sales and a mention on Forbes’s list of highest-paid authors. But long before Patterson rose to prominence as one of the era’s most commercially successful writers, he was born in 1947 in New York and grew up in the Newburgh area of the state.

After graduating from Vanderbilt University with his M.A. in English, James Patterson first entered the field of advertising, but by 1996 he had left the field to devote his time to writing. Between 1976 and 1989, Patterson wrote a number of moderately successful books, starting with The Thomas Berryman Number (1976) and including: Season of the Machete (1977), Virgin (1980), and The Midnight Club (1989.)

It was the novel Along Came a Spider, published in 1993, that launched James Patterson and his Alex Cross series into stardom and made him one of the era’s most commercially successful authors. The novel, along with its follow-up Kiss the Girls, was adapted into the 1997 hit movie of the same name starring Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd. In total so far, the Alex Cross series consists of twenty-two books, but Patterson has written in addition to that nearly a hundred other books for adults and children, including some non-fiction works as well.

To date, James Patterson has sold more than three hundred million copies of his books, with one hundred fourteen of his works rising to become New York Times Best Sellers, often outpacing notable writers such as Dan Brown, John Grisham, and Stephen King. In addition to his work as a writer, Patterson also oversees his own scholarship fund for teachers, which helps to provide opportunities for aspiring teachers to have their tuition paid for at prestigious universities such as Michigan State, Florida Atlantic University, and Appalachian State University.

James Patterson continues to write a staggering number of novels each year. His most recent publication, 16th Seduction, arrived in 2017. It’s his sixteenth book in his “Women’s Murder Club” series.