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.Īfter 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. 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. For fans of Gary Paulsen’s classic Hatchet and Lauren Tarshis’s bestselling I Survived series, J. They had food and water storage that took up half the garage, emergency backpacks with survival gear in the hall closet. Growing up in a family of six kids, her dad, a US Secret Service agent, was passionate about emergency preparedness. When not writing, she enjoys teaching guitar the fun way, traveling to new places, and coming back home to the desert. She lives on the edge of town with her husband and kids. As an adult, she moved back to the place she was born, Las Vegas, Nevada, and immediately knew she was home. JL Esplin lived in four different states by the time she turned 13. From Starscape (Tor/Macmillan) Now in paperback 96 MILES by J. She is represented by Andrea Somberg, literary agent at Harvey Klinger Inc.įor inquires, please contact Andrea Somberg at Bio: esplin 2020 debut author of 96 Miles, an adventure survival middle grade novel. She lives in Las Vegas, Nevada on the edge of town with her husband and kids, and is currently working on her next novel for Starscape (Tor/MacMillan). Esplin is the award-winning author of 96 Miles, a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, nominated for more than 15 state book awards, and winner of the Truman Readers Award, Nevada Young Readers’ Award, and Mississippi’s Magnolia Book Award.

96 Miles by J.L. Esplin