Quinn was born as Julie Cotler in 1970 to Jane and Stephen Lewis Cotler. She has three sisters: Emily, Abigail, and Ariana. She is Jewish. She was raised primarily in New England, although she spent much of her time in California following her parents' divorce.
Since her early childhood, Quinn thoroughly enjoyed books. At age 12, her father disagreed with her choices of reading material, Sweet Dreams and the Sweet Valley High book series, and told her she could keep reading them only if she could prove that they were good for her. She promptly told him that she was studying them in order to write one herself. Challenged to prove that she meant her statement, Quinn sat down at their computer and wrote her first two chapters. After finishing her novel three years later, she submitted it to Sweet Dreams, but was rejected.
Quinn graduated from Hotchkiss School and Harvard with a degree in Art History. During her senior year of college, she realized that she did not know what she wanted to do with her degree and decided to attend medical school. That decision required her to attend two additional years of college to complete the science prerequisites necessary to apply for medical school. She postponed medical school for two years while she wrote two more novels.

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