J. L. Esplin

JL Esplin is a writer of books for kids and teens. She lives in Las Vegas, Nevada with her husband and kids. Her first middle-grade novel, 96 Miles, will be out February 11, 2020, from Starscape (Tor/Macmillan).

She lived in four different states by the time she turned 13. As an adult, she moved back to the place she was born, Las Vegas, Nevada, and immediately knew she was home. She lives on the edge of town with her husband and kids. When not writing, she enjoys teaching guitar the fun way, travelling to new places, and coming back home to the desert.

Growing up in a family of six kids, her dad, a US Secret Service agent, was passionate about emergency preparedness. They had food and water storage that took up half the garage, emergency backpacks with survival gear in the hall closet. And the family slept soundly each night knowing that, in the event of a house fire, Dad had secured a rope to the foot of each bed with which they could escape their second-story bedroom windows. It was important to him that his kids were self-reliant, and on that note, he gave her and her siblings a survival tip that she never forgot: If you’re ever in a desperate situation, it’s okay to drink the water in the toilet, you just have to boil it first.

After years spent contemplating this revolting bit of advice, imagining scenarios in which she might have to drink toilet water, wondering if she’d be willing to do something like that to survive, she sat down and wrote the first sentence of her debut novel, 96 Miles.