Stephanie Hemphill is an American author of books for young adults. She has lived in Los Angeles and Chicago. [1]
Stephanie Hemphill is an American author of books for young adults. She has lived in Los Angeles and Chicago. [1]
Hemphill grew up in Chicago and began writing at an early age, as part of the Young Authors afterschool program. [2] Hemphill published poetry for adults first, but had always wanted to write for children. [2] Eventually, she took a class at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) about writing children's poetry and the class inspired her to write her first novel. [2]
Hemphill's first novel, Things Left Unsaid: A Novel in Poems (2005), is realistic fiction about a friendship between two girls which alternates between toxic and healthy. The characterization of the main characters was considered excellent and the pacing of the story praised by School Library Journal . [3] The way that Hemphill writes Things Left Unsaid, according to Sara K. Day, allows the reader to become a confidante of the narrator, as if the reader is a friend, too. [4] Things Left Unsaid won the Myra Cohn Livingston Award in 2006. [2] [5]
Hemphill won a 2008 Printz Honor for her book, Your Own, Sylvia, a novel in verse about the poet, Sylvia Plath. [6] [7] In working on Your Own, Sylvia, Hemphill shared that this novel faced many challenges, one of which was surviving the "censoring gauntlet of the Plath estate," but that she enjoyed writing about her because she loved Plath as an artist. [8] Hemphill also felt a kinship to Plath during the time of her writing, since her marriage was ending and she was in the grips of being both overworked and depressed. [9] She also worked in a manner similar to Plath, writing poetry every day, journaling and also writing to her mother, as Plath often did. [10] The Chicago Tribune reviewed Your Own, Syliva, writing about the novel that "rarely is there such a striking and successful blend of literary form and subject." [11] Your Own, Sylvia also won the Myra Cohn Livingston Award in 2008. [5] [12]
Hemphill's 2010 novel, Wicked Girls, is a free-verse historical novel of the Salem witch trials. [13] Wicked Girls was a 2010 L.A. Times Book Prize Finalist. [14] The Horn Book Magazine has singled out her novels in verse to highlight, calling the poetry in her 2012 work, Sisters of Glass, "elegant." [15] In 2013 she wrote, Hideous Love, which is also written in free-verse is about the writer Mary Shelley. [16] Hideous Love was considered by to be faithful to the history of Shelley's life, especially in imagining the difficulties of living under the principals of free love and "the compromises culture required of a woman of genius during the time period." [17]
While Hemphill's novels received much praise from various sources others have been more critical. Reviewers for The Lion and the Unicorn called the verse in Your Own, Sylvia "doggerel." [18]
Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist, and short-story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, The Colossus and Other Poems (1960) and Ariel (1965), as well as The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her death in 1963. The Collected Poems were published in 1981, which included previously unpublished works. For this collection Plath was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1982, making her the fourth to receive this honour posthumously.
Edward James Hughes was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1984 and held the office until his death. In 2008 The Times ranked Hughes fourth on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".
The Bell Jar is the only novel written by the American writer and poet Sylvia Plath. Originally published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in 1963, the novel is semi-autobiographical with the names of places and people changed. The book is often regarded as a roman à clef because the protagonist's descent into mental illness parallels Plath's own experiences with what may have been clinical depression or bipolar II disorder. Plath committed suicide a month after its first United Kingdom publication. The novel was published under Plath's name for the first time in 1967 and was not published in the United States until 1971, in accordance with the wishes of both Plath's husband, Ted Hughes, and her mother. The novel has been translated into nearly a dozen languages.
Young adult fiction (YA) is a category of fiction written for readers from 12 to 18 years of age. While the genre is targeted at adolescents, approximately half of YA readers are adults.
Confessional Writing is a literary style and genre that developed in American writing schools following the Second World War. A prominent mode of confessional writing is confessional poetry, which emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. Confessional writing is often historically associated with Postmodernism due to the features which the modes share: including self-performativity and self-reflexivity; discussions of culturally taboo subjects; and the literary influences of personal conflict and historical trauma. Confessional writing also has historical origins in Catholic confessional practices. As such, confessional writing is congruent with psychoanalytic literary criticism. Confessional writing is also a form of life writing, especially through the autobiography form.
David Levithan is an American young adult fiction author and editor. He has written numerous works featuring strong male gay characters, most notably Boy Meets Boy and Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List. Six of Levithan's books have won or been finalists for the Lambda Literary Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature, making him the most celebrated author in the category.
Assia Esther Wevill was a German woman who escaped the Nazis at the beginning of World War II and emigrated to Palestine, via Italy, then later the United Kingdom, where she had a relationship with the English poet Ted Hughes. While she was a successful advertising copywriter and a talented translator of poetry, she is mainly remembered in the context of her relationships with and influences on Sylvia Plath and Hughes.
Jacqueline Rose, FBA is a British academic who is Professor of Humanities at the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities.
"Lady Lazarus" is a poem written by Sylvia Plath, originally included in Ariel, which was published in 1965, two years after her death by suicide. This poem is commonly used as an example of her writing style. It is considered one of Plath's best poems and has been subject to a plethora of literary criticism since its publication. It is commonly interpreted as an expression of Plath's suicidal attempts and thoughts.
Sonya Sones is an American poet and author. She has written seven young adult novels in verse, and one novel in verse for adults. The ALA has named her one of the most frequently challenged authors of the 21st century. In 2004, 2005, 2010, and 2011, the ALA included her novel What My Mother Doesn't Know on their list of the Top Ten Most Challenged Books, and it was named 31st on the ALA's list of the Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books of the 2000s.
Ellen Wittlinger is an American author of young adults novels, including Gracie's Girl and the Printz Honor book Hard Love.
"Mad Girl's Love Song" is a poem written by Sylvia Plath in villanelle form that was published in 1953, ten years before her death by suicide. She wrote this poem while attending Smith College and described it as being one of her favorite poems that she had written. "Mad Girl's Love Song" was originally published in Mademoiselle, a New York based magazine geared toward young women. This poem was first formally published during the same month as her first suicide attempt.
Carolyn Mackler is an American author of young adult literature. She has written nine novels including Infinite in Between; Love and Other Four-Letter Words; The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things, which won an honorable mention from the Michael L. Printz award; Vegan Virgin Valentine; Guyaholic; and Tangled. Her novels are in print in more than 20 countries such as: the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, France, Italy, Korea, the Netherlands, Denmark, Israel, and Indonesia. Mackler has also contributed to many magazines including Seventeen, Storyworks, Glamour, Girl's Life, and American Girl. She coauthored The Future of Us with Jay Asher.
April Halprin Wayland is an American children's and young adult author, poet, and teacher.
Judith Elizabeth Kazantzis was a British poet and political and social activist.
Anna Journey is an American poet and essayist who was awarded a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry. She is the author of the essay collection An Arrangement of Skin and three books of poems: The Atheist Wore Goat Silk, Vulgar Remedies, and If Birds Gather Your Hair for Nesting, the latter of which was selected by Thomas Lux for the National Poetry Series. She teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Southern California, where she is an assistant professor of English.
Rainbow Rowell is an American author known for young adult and adult contemporary novels. Her young adult novels Eleanor & Park (2012), Fangirl (2013) and Carry On (2015) have been subjects of critical acclaim.
Myra Morris was an Australian poet, novelist, and writer for children.
Sudeep Nagarakar is an Indian novelist and writer of fiction. His first novel, Few Things Left Unsaid, was published by Srishti Publishers in 2011. Till 2020, twelve novels authored by him have been published. He is the recipient of the 2013 Youth Achievers' Award for writing for being one of the highest selling writers in India in romance genre. His book It started with a friend request was the most popular fiction book of 2013, according to Amazon India.
Elizabeth Acevedo is a Dominican-American poet and author. She is the author of the young adult novels The Poet X, With the Fire on High, and Clap When You Land. The Poet X is a New York Times Bestseller, National Book Award Winner, and Carnegie Medal winner. She is also the winner of the 2019 Michael L. Printz Award, the 2018 Pura Belpre Award, and the Boston-Globe Hornbook Award Prize for Best Children’s Fiction of 2018. She lives in Washington, DC.
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