In conversation with Beth Kephart

A “master of illusion, and one of the best storytellers around” (NPR), Amy Tan is the author of the beloved novels The Joy Luck Club, a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, for which she also co-wrote the film adaptation screenplay; The Kitchen God's Wife; The Hundred Secret Senses, and The Valley of Amazement. Her prolific body of work also includes the memoir Where the Past Begins, several other novels and works of nonfiction, two children’s books, and essays and stories that appeared in scores of periodicals and anthologies. In The Backyard Bird Chronicles, Tan pecks out a thoughtful ode to birding and the hidden beauty that lives around us, nested together with her own soaring illustrations.

Renowned for her ability “to generalize from her personal experience to the greater human one” (The Washington Post), Beth Kephart is the author of more than 30 books across a wide range of genres, including poetry, young adult fiction, and, most notably, the memoir. These works include the award-winning how-to-guide Handling the Truth; A Slant of Sun, a National Book Award finalist; Love, an ode to all things Philly; and Wife | Daughter | Self, an interlocking essay collection about her various identities. A writing professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the co-founder of Junction workshops, she is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Grant, a Pew Fellowship, and the Speakeasy Poetry Prize, among other honors. Her latest book is an illustrated memoir, My Life In Paper.

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