Elaine Lobl Konigsburg was born in New York City on February 10, 1930, to Beulah Klein Lobl and Adolph Lobl, a businessman. She attended Carnegie Institute of Technology, now Carnegie-Mellon University, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in 1952. She then studied chemistry in graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh until 1954, when she married psychologist David Konigsburg.

The couple moved to Jacksonville, Florida; here Konigsburg taught science for two years before focusing her energies on rearing her three children.

As they grew more responsible with age, Konisburg applied what she had learned raising them to the writing of fiction for children. Although never a practicing chemist, Konigsburg feels that the mental discipline scientific study and research taught her has been instrumental in her success as a writer. This mental rigor has allowed her to set aside distractions and concentrate on writing each morning.

She made a...