Clare was born Judith Rumelt to American parents inTehran, Iran. She is the daughter ofRichard Rumelt, a business school professor and author.[5] Her maternal grandfather was film producerMax Rosenberg.[6] Clare is Jewish and has described her family as "not religious".[7][8]
As a child, Clare traveled frequently, spending time in Switzerland, England, and France. She returned to Los Angeles for high school and from then on, split her time betweenCalifornia andNew York City, where she worked at various entertainment magazines and tabloids, includingThe Hollywood Reporter.[9]
She is also friends with the authorHolly Black, and their books occasionally overlap, Clare mentioning characters from Black's novels and vice versa, such as Val and Luis from Black'sValiant.[10]
Her publisher also credits Clare with creating the "City of Fallen Angels treatment" where a tangible "letter" from one character to another is attached to the back of physical copies of a book. The goal is to spur print book sales.[5]
There is a prequel trilogy calledThe Infernal Devices, set in the same universe asThe Mortal Instruments, but set in the Victorian era. This consists of three books:Clockwork Angel, published on August 31, 2010,Clockwork Prince, published on December 6, 2011, andClockwork Princess, published on March 19, 2013.[12]
A fourth trilogy set in this universe was announced in 2012, collectively known asThe Dark Artifices. The new contemporary series is set in Los Angeles and follow female shadowhunter Emma Carstairs, who was introduced inCity of Heavenly Fire.[13] The first book,Lady Midnight, was released in March 2016; the second,Lord of Shadows was released in April 2017; the third,Queen of Air and Darkness was released on December 4, 2018.[14][15]
There are also two series of interconnected short stories set in this universe. The first isThe Bane Chronicles, completed in 2014 and written withSarah Rees Brennan andMaureen Johnson, and the second is the plannedTales from the Shadowhunter Academy, written with Brennan and Johnson as well asRobin Wasserman.[16]
After a disappointing box office performance, subsequent movies in the series were canceled. A television adaptation ofThe Mortal Instruments calledShadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments began airing in January 2016. It was canceled after the third season.[20]
Plagiarism accusations
Clare was accused of plagiarism dating back to 2000–2001 when she was writing the fan fiction workThe Draco Trilogy.[21][22]The Christian Science Monitor wrote in 2013 about how Clare's plagiarism andcyberbullying angered many in the Harry Potter online fandom community.[23] Later that year,The Daily Dot described how Clare had copied much of a chapter ofThe Secret Country (1985), an out-of-print fantasy novel byPamela Dean, into Clare's ownThe Draco Trilogy, without attribution to Dean.[24][25] A complaint by another website user in mid-2001 led to a review byFanFiction.Net administrators, resulting in Clare banned for plagiarism and her writings removed from the website.[26][27] Clare continued to post her trilogy on a fan fictionYahoo! group until the series was complete in 2006. She recycled many ideas fromThe Draco Trilogy into her best-selling book seriesMortal Instruments.[25]
Best-selling fantasy novelistSherrilyn Kenyon sued Clare over claims that Clare copied aspects of Kenyon'sDark-Hunters series (1998) for Clare'sShadowhunters series.[28] The lawsuit contended that characters are similar, that "elements are virtually identical" between the books, and that the term "shadow hunters" was copied.[29] Clare's lawyers released a statement saying that Clare had never read any of Kenyon's books.Simon & Schuster, Clare's publisher, did not comment.[30] Kenyon later removed the central accusation of copyright violation from the lawsuit, leaving the peripheral issue of cover art and branding similarities. She eventually settled out of court, and paid her own legal fees.[31][32]
Awards
City of Bones
2010 Georgia Peach Book Awards for Teen Readers[33]
Finalist for the Locus Award for Best First Novel of 2007
An American Library Association Teens Top Ten Award winner, 2008[34]
2010 Georgia Peach Book Awards for Teen Readers[33]
Winner of The 2010 Abraham Lincoln Illinois High School Book Award[35]
Winner of the 2010 Pacific Northwest Library Association Young Reader's Choice Award[36]
A History of Notable Shadowhunters and Denizens of Downworld (illustrated by Cassandra Jean) (February 18, 2016)ISBN978-1-471-16119-3
Ghosts of the Shadow Market: An Anthology of Tales (with Sarah Rees Brennan, Maureen Johnson, Robin Wasserman &Kelly Link) (June 4, 2019)ISBN978-1-534-43362-5
Better in Black: Ten Stories of Shadowhunter Romance (December 2, 2025)
Mortal Instruments graphic novels
Art by Cassandra Jean.
The Mortal Instruments: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 1 (November 7, 2017)ISBN978-0-316-46581-6
The Mortal Instruments: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 2 (October 30, 2018)ISBN978-0-316-46582-3
The Mortal Instruments: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 3 (October 29, 2019)ISBN978-0-316-46583-0
The Mortal Instruments: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 4 (October 24, 2020)ISBN978-0-316-46584-7
The Mortal Instruments: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 5 (March 29, 2022)
Mortal Instruments coloring books
The Official Mortal Instruments Coloring Book (illustrated by Cassandra Jean) (April 25, 2017)ISBN978-1-481-49756-5
^Dill, Margo L. (March 14, 2010)."Potter Phenomenon".The Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette. p. F-3. Archived fromthe original on April 13, 2020. RetrievedJuly 15, 2020.
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