Meg Cabot

Meg Cabot (born 1967) is an American novelist best known for The Princess Diaries (2000), the young adult series adapted by Disney into the 2001 film starring Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews. She was born Meggin Patricia Cabot in Bloomington, Indiana, on 1 February 1967.

After a fine arts degree at Indiana University she moved to New York, hoping to work as an illustrator, and spent about ten years as an assistant residence hall director at New York University. The Princess Diaries, the story of Mia Thermopolis, appeared in 2000 and was followed by many sequels and the film Royal Engagement (2004); Cabot later returned to the character in Royal Wedding (2015) and Quarantine Princess Diaries (2023). She first used pen names, Patricia Cabot for historical romances and Jenny Carroll for the early Mediator and 1-800-Where-R-You books. Her other series include The Mediator (from 2000), All-American Girl (2002), Avalon High, the Airhead trilogy, Abandon, Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls and From the Notebook of a Middle School Princess (2015), which she also illustrated, alongside the adult Heather Wells mysteries (2005 to 2013) and Queen of Babble novels. She has written more than 80 novels, with over 25 million copies of her books in print, and lives in Key West, Florida.

For collectors

The American first edition of The Princess Diaries, published by HarperCollins in May 2000, is the key title. The first four Mediator books and the first four 1-800-Where-R-You books first appeared under the name Jenny Carroll, so first editions of those titles do not carry Cabot's name.