Bestselling Author │ Novelist │ Essayist Sue Monk
Kidd’s stunning bestselling debut novel, The Secret Life of Bees (2002),
has enchanted critics and readers alike, bringing her literary renown and
establishing her as one of the most popular writers working today. Taught
widely in colleges and high schools, The Secret Life of Bees is
Southern storytelling at its finest and is fast becom
ing a modern classic. The novel has spent more than two and a half years on the New York Times bestseller list, sold six million copies, and been translated into twenty-three languages. It was produced onstage in New York and was made into an award-winning movie released in the fall of 2008.
Kidd's readers eagerly anticipated the publication of
her next book, The Mermaid Chair (2005), an “emotionally rich novel,
full of sultry, magical descriptions of life in the South.” It immediately
found its way onto the hardcover bestseller list where it stayed for six months, reading the #1 spot on the New York Times list.
Winner of the 2005 Quill Award for General Fiction, The Mermaid Chair
has sold over 1.8 million copies and was adapted into a television movie.
"Kidd has
a flair for making us see her characters with great vividness and immediacy."
—The New
York Times Book Review
Sue Monk
Kidd is also the author of three highly regarded spiritual memoirs: God’s
Joyful Surprise (1988), When the Heart Waits (1990), and The Dance
of the Dissident Daughter (1996), which together comprise her groundbreaking work in the field of
feminine spirituality and feminist theology.
A
collection of Kidd's early writings was released in hardcover by Guideposts Books in 2006 and was published by Penguin in paperback in 2007. Titled Firstlight, the book is a compilation of
inspirational stories, spiritual essays, and meditations that Kidd wrote for a
little over a decade—from the age of thirty until forty-two—and
which offers an intimate glimpse into her formative years as a writer and a
spiritual seeker. Her newest work, Traveling with Pomegranates, is a mother-daughter travel memoir she co-authored with her daughter Ann Kidd Taylor. A New York Times bestseller that has enjoyed widespread critical acclaim, this revealing memoir relates the stories of two women--a fifty-something and a twenty-something--each at a crossroads, each on a quest to rediscover herself and one another.
Sue Monk
Kidd has received numerous writing awards and honors, including the 2004 Book
Sense Paperback Book of the Year, a nomination for the Orange Prize in England,
and the selection of The Secret Life of Bees as Good Morning America’s Read
This! Book Club pick.
In her
lectures Kidd talks about her work--its themes and meanings; the inspiration for her stories and characters; the experience of becoming a writer, "Southern-ness" in literature; and the intersection of writing, creativity, and soul.
Kidd lives
with her husband Sandy near Charleston,
SC.
Fiction
- The Mermaid Chair (Viking, 2005)
- The Secret Life of Bees (Viking, 2001)
Nonfiction
- Traveling With Pomegranates (Viking, 2009, co-authored with her daughter Ann Kidd Taylor)
- Firstlight: The Early
Inspirational Writings of Sue Monk Kidd (Guideposts Books, 2006/Penguin, 2007
- The Dance of the Dissident
Daughter: A Journey from the Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine (Harper, 1996)
- When the Heart Waits (Harper, 1990)
- God's Joyful Surprise (Harper, 1988)
Selected
Awards
- 2006 South Carolina “The
Order of the Palmetto” Award, the state’s highest civilian honor, bestowed by
the Governor
- 2005
Winner, Quill Award in General Fiction, The Mermaid Chair
- 2004
Winner, Book Sense Book of the Year in paperback, The Secret Life of
Bees
- 2003
Winner, SEBA Book of the Year, The Secret Life of Bees
- 2003
Finalist, Book Sense Book of the Year for fiction, The Secret Life of
Bees
- 2003
Finalist for the 2003 Boeke Prize in South Africa, The Secret Life of
Bees
- 2002
Nominee, the Orange Prize (England), The Secret Life of Bees
Media
To hear
an audio interview with Sue Monk Kidd on barnesandnoble.com, click here.
For more
information about Sue Monk Kidd and her work, go to www.suemonkkidd.com.