Hemphill, Stephanie

PERSONAL:

Female.

ADDRESSES:

Home and office—Los Angeles, CA.

CAREER:

Poet and novelist.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Myra Cohn Livingston Award, 2006.

WRITINGS:

Things Left Unsaid: A Novel in Poems, Hyperion (New York, NY), 2005.

Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor of poetry to periodicals, including California Quarterly, Into the Teeth of the Wind, LUNG-FULL!, Rino, and Mid-America Poetry Review.

SIDELIGHTS:

A published poet based in southern California, Stephanie Hemphill focused her first verse novel on a young-adult audience. In Things Left Unsaid: A Novel in Poems, readers meet Sarah Lewis, a typical high-achieving high-school junior who generally plays by the rules. Sarah senses that her life may be too typical, however, and when Robin enters her class, Sarah begins to adopt many of her new friend's characteristics: her goth clothing, her disinterest in school, her lying, and her habit of smoking. When Robin attempts suicide, however, Sarah is forced to step back and look at these choices, altering her actions and friendships to reflect her own attitudes and values rather than those of a friend. Things Left Unsaid was praised by Booklist critic Debbie Carton as a "fine first novel" featuring "accessible" and plot-driven verse. "Hemphill has her pacing and character development down pat," wrote Sharon Korbeck in School Library Journal, and Kliatt critic Claire Rosser praised Things Left Unsaid as a "carefully written … novel that will speak to many teenagers."

Also written for teen readers, Hemphill's Your Own, Syliva: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath brings to life the insights of a noted mid-twentieth-century American writer in what Booklist critic Gillian Engberg deemed an "ambitious portrait." Basing her work on secondary sources as well as on Plath's own journals and letters, Hemphill creates poems that resonate with the voices of those who knew Plath, creating "an intimate, comprehensive, imaginative view of a life that also probes the relationships between poetry and creativity," according to Engberg. Arranged chronologically from the poet's birth through her tragic suicide, Hemphill's "skillfully crafted poems" comprise "a collection of verse worthy of the artist whom it portrays," in the opinion of School Library Journal contributor Jill Heritage Maza. "Hemphill is clearly fascinated" by her subject, concluded Kliatt contributor Myrna Marler, the critic adding that Hemphill's "own poetry about Plath is certainly more accessible than Plath's poems about Plath." An "innovative portrait," Your Own, Sylvia "may not shed any new light" on its compelling subject, according to a Publishers Weekly critic, "but it could well act as a catalyst to introducing Plath to a new generation."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 1, 2005, Debbie Carton, review of Things Left Unsaid: A Novel in Poems, p. 1580; February 15, 2007, Gillian Engberg, review of Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath, p. 87.

Horn Book, May-June, 2005, Martha V. Parravano, review of Things Left Unsaid, p. 326; March-April, 2007, Lissa Paul, review of Your Own, Sylvia, p. 208.

Kirkus Reviews, January 15, 2005, review of Things Left Unsaid, p. 121; February 1, 2007, review of Your Own, Sylvia, p. 123.

Kliatt, March, 2005, Claire Rosser, review of Things Left Unsaid, p. 12; March, 2007, Myrna Marler, review of Your Own, Sylvia, p. 13.

Publishers Weekly, March 19, 2007, review of Your Own, Sylvia, p. 64.

School Library Journal, February, 2005, Sharon Korbeck, review of Things Left Unsaid, p. 136; March, 2007, Jill Heritage Maza, review of Your Own, Sylvia, p. 230.