Coe Booth

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Coe Booth is an American fiction writer. Her first novel, released in 2007, is targeted for young adolescents.

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[edit] Biography

Booth was born on March 21st in New York City. She grew up in the Bronx and loved growing up in the inner city. When she was not in school she attended dance school and took piano lessons. Some of her favorite memories are playing double dutch, riding her bike with her friends and getting cooled off by fire hydrants on the hot, summer days.

Booth says she started writing novels in second grade while sitting in class. Of course, her "novels" were pieces of paper stapled together. By middle school, her "novels" would get passed around in class to her classmates. According to Booth, her classmates loved them and begged her to write more.

Throughout college, Booth’s jobs ranged from: selling jewelry at a department store, working at a bookstore, and teaching creative writing and video production to children and teens. Her favorite job was working with senior citizens. She taught them memoir writing and enjoyed hearing the stories of their past. She graduated from college in 1996 with a BA and MA in Psychology; she then worked as a social worker in New York City Emergency Children’s Service. The teens that she worked with came from tough lives, some were homeless, addicted to drugs, involved in gangs or had suffered sexual or physical abuse. She was always impressed and moved by how they survived through their adversity.

Booth received an MFA in creative writing from The New School at which time she also finished her first book Tyrell. She says that she got her inspiration to write this book from her experiences working with the troubled teens. She now works as a full-time writer and part-time college professor at a Bronx Community College, teaching English. She also volunteers for the NAACP ACT-SO program, where she mentors teen writers. Her hobbies are reading, playing piano, and amateur filmmaking.

Currently, she is living in Basel, Switzerland as a writer-in-residence at Laurenz Haus. While she is there she is writing the sequel to Tyrell. Her second teen novel, Kendra is to be released on October 1st.

[edit] Books

  • Tyrell - A novel about street life as seen through the eyes of a fifteen-year-old, homeless, African American boy growing up in the Bronx.
  • Kendra – Release date October 1, 2008.
  • Contributed a short story in the anthology This is Push: New Voices from The Edge

[edit] Awards

  • The 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Young Adult Fiction
  • The 2007 New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age
  • The 2007 American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults
  • The 2007 American Library Association Quick Picks for reluctant Young Adult Readers

[edit] References

[edit] External links