Beth Kephart, the award-winning author of more than thirty books of fiction and nonfiction, has chaired national literature juries and has written about memoir and literature for The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Millions, Creative Nonfiction, Brevity, Salon.com, Huffington Post, Image Journal Good Letters, and elsewhere. Her new memoir in essays, Wife|Daughter|Self, is due out from Forest Avenue Press in February 2021. Her essays can be found at The Normal School, Ninth Letter, North American Review, Creative Nonfiction, Cleaver, Woven Tale Press, and many other publications.
As an adjunct teacher of creative nonfiction at the University of Pennsylvania, Beth is the recipient of the 2015 Beltran Family Award for Innovative Teaching and Mentoring. She was the 2013 Miami YoungArts Master Teacher. She has conducted workshops across the country, participated in many big-festival panels, and given numerous keynotes. She was named one of the 50 writers celebrated in the year-long Philadelphia’s Literary Legacy exhibit at the Philadelphia International Airport.
Beth is the author of Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir (Avery), winner of the 2013 Books for a Better Life Award (Motivational Category), a memoir workbook called Tell the Truth. Make It Matter., and a collection of new ideas about the memoir form called Strike the Empty.
Her acclaimed books for younger readers include Cloud Hopper, The Great Upending, Wild Blues, This Is the Story of You, and Going Over. Picture books featuring Henriette Wyeth and Roberto Innocenti, among others, are forthcoming.
To read her essays or find out more about her books, visit her at her website.