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Sue Monk Kidd grew up in Southwest Georgia.  In 1970, she graduated from Texas Christian University (TCU) in Fort Worth with a major in nursing despite her desire to be a writer.  She ignored that desire and developed her career as a nurse at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Fort Worth. She went on to become an instructor of nursing at the Medical College of Georgia.

While in her thirties and living with her husband and children in South Carolina she began to pursue her life-long interest in writing.  She wrote two non-fiction books, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter and When the Heart Waits before writing fiction.

Then she tried her hand at fiction and won the Katherine Anne Porter Award. Two of her short stories, including an excerpt from The Secret Life of Bees, were selected as notable stories in Best American Short Stories. Her first novel, The Secret Life of Bees, was met with both critical and commercial success. Her second novel, The Mermaid’s Chair, was published in 2005. She has also written the inspirational book titled God’s Joyful Surprise: Finding Yourself Loved and  Firstlight: The Early Inspirational Writings of Sue Monk Kidd.

• Read our book review of
  The Secret Life of Bees.

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