Beth Kephart

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Beth Kephart is an American author of non-fiction, poetry and young adult fiction for adults and teens. Kephart has written and published over ten books and was a National Book Award Finalist [http://www.nationalbook.org/bookchanged_bkephart.html] for her book “A Slant of the Sun: One Child’s Courage” published in 1998, by W. W. Norton. Kephart's work has also been featured in over ten anthologies.

Kephart was first published in Iowa Woman magazine and has said she was writing poems from the time she was quite young, and that she very influenced by music, the sound of words. “I loved to sing. I loved to perform, with my brother and sister, to the sound tracks of The Music Man or My Fair Lady or Windjammer. I always had rhymes sliding around in my head. So that even as I got older, I would return to Robert Louis Stevenson and Hans Christian Andersen to see how they created what they created. I would read F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway and Sinclair Lewis, also, to learn about how words fit together. And then, of course, there was "Black Beauty"” (excerpt from Harper Collins Interview – http://www.harpercollins.com/author/authorExtra.aspx?authorID=19248&displayType=interview .)

Kephart is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and was also a participant at the Bread Loaf Writing Conference, Middlebury, VT, with Jayne Anne Phillips, 1996 Prague Writing Conference, Czech Republic, with William Gass and Jayne Anne Phillips, and 1995 Spoleto Writing Conference, Spoleto, Italy, with Rosellen Brown and Reginald Gibbons, 1994.

Kephart is a prolific writer and reviewer and has penned reviews and essays for such publications as New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Salon.com, Washington Post Book World, Wall Street Journal Europe, Philadelphia magazine, Philadelphia Inquirer, Family Circle, Parenting, Real Simple, Reader’s Digest, New Jersey Life, Pennsylvania Gazette, and Main Line Today.

In 1997 she was awarded a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant. Three years later, in 2000, she received a National Endowment for the Arts grant. In 2005, she received a grant from the Pew Fellowships in the Arts program. UNDERCOVER, her first book for young adults, was named a 2007 best book of the year by Amazon.com, Kirkus, and School Library Journal.

She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and son and is an avid ballroom dancer and gardener. She is the writing partner in the marketing communications firm, Fusion Communications.

Bibliography

The Heart is Not a Size, Laura Geringer Books: HarperTeen, forthcoming 2009House of Dance, Laura Geringer Books: HarperTeen, forthcoming, June 2008Zenobia: The Curious Book of Business, Berrett-Kohler, forthcoming, January 2008Undercover, Laura Geringer Books: HarperTeen, 2007Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River,
Temple University Press, 2007Ghosts in the Garden: Endings, Beginnings, and the Unearthing of Self, New World Library, 2005 Seeing Past Z: Nurturing the Imagination in a Fast-Forward World, W.W. Norton, 2004Still Love in Strange Places: A Memoir, W.W. Norton, 2002Into the Tangle of Friendship: A Memoir of the Things that Matter, Houghton Mifflin, 2000A Slant of Sun: One Child's Courage, W.W. Norton, 1998

No Such Thing as the Real World, HarperTeen, forthcoming 2010Big Shoes: In Celebration of Dads and Fatherhood, Al Roker and Friends, Hyperion, 2005
Because I Said So, HarperCollins, 2005 Best American Sports Writing, Houghton Mifflin, 2003New York Times Writers on Writing, Volume II, Times Books, 2003
The Kindness of Strangers, Lonely Planet, 2003Best American Sports Writing, Houghton Mifflin, 2001Wanderlust: Real-Life Tales of Adventure and Romance, 2000Mothers Who Think, Villard1999The Leap Years, Beacon Press, 1999

Speakeasy Poetry Prize (2005)Pew Fellowships in the Arts (2005)March 2005 BookSense PickNational Endowment for the Arts Grant (2000)Leeway Grant for Creative Nonfiction (1998)Salon Best Book of the Year (1998)National Book Award, Nonfiction Finalist (1998)Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Top Fiction Grant (1997)Bread Loaf Merit Scholar for Fiction (1996)