Ellen Hopkins

Ellen Hopkins (born March 26, 1955) is a novelist who has published several New York Times bestselling novels, that are extremely popular amongst a teenage and young adult audience.

Hopkins began her writing career with a number of nonfiction books for children, including Air Devils and Orcas: High Seas Supermen. She has written 20 such non-fiction books.
Hopkins had a daughter who became addicted to crystal meth, or "crank." In 2002, her struggle inspired Hopkins to begin writing her debut novel, Crank, meant to express the horrible influences of drug abuse and addiction. Hopkins has since published several verse novels on teenage struggles, including Burned, Impulse, Identical, Glass, Tricks, and Fallout. Glass is the sequel to Crank, and her most recent release, Fallout, is the third and final book in the series. It was released on September 14, 2010. Perfect is scheduled to be released in 2011 and it's a companion novel to Impulse. Hopkins also plans on releasing a sequel to Burned, Smoke, in 2013.
She loves her home state and her adoptive parents. Later in life, she found her biological mother, Toni Chandler, who was a writer and poet. Hopkins believes most of her writing talent originates from her. She also considers her fifth grade teacher to be the first person to encourage her to become a professional writer.


Crank (2004)
Glass (2007)
Fallout (2010)

Burned (2006)
Impulse (August 2007) (One of my favorite, fantastic novel)
Identical (2008)
Tricks (2009)
Perfect (2011)
Triangles' (2011)
Smoke (2013)



Hopkins was adopted by Al and Val Weiner when they were 72 and 42, respectively. Her first poem was published in the Palm Springs Desert Sun when she was nine. She attended high school in Santa Ynez Valley and went on to study journalism at the University of California, Santa Barbara before dropping out to start a family and a business. When her marriage failed, she sold her business and began freelance work. She then married John Hopkins, her current husband, and they have three children Cristal, Kelly and Jason. They also adopted another child, Cristal's son, Orion.

everybody knows that Ellen Hopkins is a great novelist but i hope few of them know this. Adopted at birth by an elderly couple, Ellen Hopkins grew up in Palm Springs, California and lived among some of Hollywood’s most famous celebrities. As a child she showed horses and learned to barrel race. She also studied dance. She published her first poem at age nine in a local newspaper and knew then that she wanted to be a writer. In 1973 she graduated from high school and began attending the University of California at Santa Barbara majoring in journalism, but dropped out to get married and raise a family. Her early career consisted of writing poetry, doing freelance writing for magazines, and working as a reporter. Hopkins has written several hundred articles on all different subjects and published more than twenty nonfiction books ranging in topics from aviation to orcas. She published her first young adult book Crank in October 2004 and discovered she enjoyed writing for teens.

Crank is a fictionalized version of Hopkins’ daughter’s addiction to drugs and the devastating effects it brought upon her daughter and the family. Hopkins found that she could best deal with her anger and try to understand the situation by writing about it in a poetic free verse format from the point of view of her daughter. She found the process cathartic and never dreamed it would be a published book.

Since then she has written several bestselling novels for teens and tours the country speaking to high school students and teaching writing workshops. Hopkins enjoys connecting with her readers and takes the opportunity to discuss the serious subject matter of her books as a means of intervention and prevention.