March 29, 2005

Sue Monk Kidd, author of the bestselling The Secret Life of Bees and the just-published The Mermaid Chair, will read from her work at UCSB Campbell Hall

Summary Facts:

• Sue Monk Kidd
• An Evening with the Author
• Monk wrote The Secret Life of Bees, which spent over 80 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list
• Her latest novel, the much-anticipated The Mermaid Chair, will be published early April
• Wednesday, May 4
• 8 pm / UCSB Campbell Hall
• General: $10 / UCSB students: $8
• Tickets/information: UCSB Arts & Lectures at 893-3535

Author of the moving bestseller The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd will read from her work—including her just-published second novel The Mermaid Chair—on Wednesday, May 4 at 8 pm at UCSB Campbell Hall. The Mermaid Chair explores a woman’s pilgrimage to self-belonging, the inner life of midlife marriage, and the little known region in the female soul where the sacred and the erotic intersect. Set on a South Carolina barrier island, it tells the beautiful and haunting story of 42 year old Jessie Sullivan, a married woman who falls in love with a Benedictine monk and the crisis and self-awakening this ignites.

After a successful career as a nonfiction writer, Sue Monk Kidd began writing her first novel The Secret Life of Bees in 1997 and worked on it for the next three and a half years. Published by Viking in 2002, it became a genuine literary phenomenon. A powerful story of coming-of-age, race-relations, the ability of love to transform our lives and the often unacknowledged longing for the universal feminine divine, the novel tells the story of fourteen year old Lily, who runs away with her black housekeeper in 1964 in South Carolina and the sanctuary they both find in the home of three eccentric beekeeping sisters.

The Secret Life of Bees has sold more than 3.5 million copies, spent over eighty weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and been published in more than 20 languages. It was awarded the 2004 Book Sense Paperback book of the Year, nominated for the Orange Prize in England and chosen as Good Morning America’s “Read This!” Book Club pick. It has been produced on stage in New York by The American Place Theater and is being adapted into a movie by Focus Films.

Kidd was born and raised in the tiny town of Sylvester, Georgia, which is tucked among the pinelands and red fields of Southwest Georgia, a place she has lovingly referred to as “an enduring somewhere.” Her writing has been deeply influenced by place, and she mined her experiences of growing up in Sylvester as she wrote The Secret Life of Bees. She majored in nursing at Texas Christian University and worked throughout her twenties as a registered nurse on surgical and pediatric hospital units and as a college nursing instructor. During that time, she married Sanford (Sandy) Kidd, a graduate student in theology, and they had two children, Bob and Ann.

Shortly before she turned thirty the pull to writing returned. Living in Anderson, South Carolina where her husband was teaching at a small liberal arts college, Kidd enrolled in writing classes with the intention of writing fiction, but was soon diverted to nonfiction when a personal essay she wrote for class was published in Guideposts Magazine and reprinted in Readers Digest. Wanting to help support her family, she began a career as a freelancer, writing personal experience articles, most of them inspirational and art of living pieces.

It was during her thirties that Kidd began to experience an intellectual and spiritual flowering. She embarked on a serious study of the classics of Western spirituality, philosophy, depth psychology and mythology, while also reading voluminous amounts of literary fiction. She became deeply influenced by work of the monk and poet Thomas Merton and Swiss psychiatrist C.G. Jung, which would impact her writing in the years ahead.

Her first book described her advent into contemplative Christian spirituality: God’s Joyful Surprise, published by Harper SanFrancisco in 1988. Her second book When the Heart Waits, published by Harper SanFrancisco in 1990, was met with critical acclaim and revealed a deepening of her voice. Rooted in contemplative spirituality, the memoir recounts her intense and vivid spiritual transformation.

While in her early forties, Kidd’s explorations and study took an unexpected turn into feminist theology. The result was The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, published in 1996 by Harper SanFrancisco. This bold and highly successfully memoir had a groundbreaking effect within religious circles, evoking an astonishingly passionate response.

Her desire to write fiction returned when she was in her forties. She enrolled in a graduate writing course at Emory University, and studied at Sewanee, Bread Loaf and other writers’ conferences. She began by writing and publishing short stories in small literary journals. Soon she was garnering awards for her short fiction and began work on The Secret Life of Bees.

Courtesy of Borders Books, works by Sue Monk Kidd will be available for purchase and signing at the event.

Sue Monk Kidd is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures. Tickets are $10 for the general public and $8 for UCSB students.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
George Yatchisin at (805) 893-3494.