Biography

Some things you wouldn’t know about me from my books:

I’m working on a screenplay, a comedy about an old storybook theme park near my house. My friend, Betsy Barnes, is writing it with me and my other friend, Tammy Stedman, is consulting (she won an Oscar for a short film she produced the same year American Beauty won for Best Picture.) We’ve been at it since the summer of 2008 and some days, it seems like it’s almost finished. (Others, it feels like making beds and putting away dishes…just another thing I need to do every day.)

I love live performances of almost any kind, especially music but also lectures and readings and plays. Some favorites: Spring Awakening, American Idiot, Amos Lee, Patty Griffin, Mike Errico and listening to Anne Lamott or Marilynne Robinson read anything.

I worked in non-profits for ten years. That decade created my worldview, which goes: people are struggling; make yourself useful. My big project is Notes & Words, a series featuring musicians and writers on stage together to benefit Children’s Hospital of Oakland, where my daughter was treated for Meningitis.

I went to three great schools: Radnor High School, where Dr. Mary Anne Capa showed me what actual scholarship looks like; The University of Richmond, which was a whole lot of fun and introduced me to some of my all-time favorite people; and San Francisco State University (for a Masters in Literature) where I was humbled by 1,000 page-a-week reading assignments and floored that for $600 a semester, I could sit in weekly seminars with professors like Michael Krasny (host of KQED Forum) and Bruce Avery.

Greenie is still Greenie, glad-handing, coaching lacrosse, clicking his heels. He turns 80 on March 30 and my brothers and I are planning the mother of all parties. The fact of his survival is something I can never quite get over.

Other projects I’m a part of are:

Notes & Words, a series of events featuring musicians and writers on stage at The Fox Theater to benefit Children’s Hospital of Oakland. (If you’re local, please save May 6.)

Y Scholars, a program to help highly motivated high school students go to college.

www.circusofcancer.org a web site to teach you how to love someone through cancer

www.greatergoodparents.org a web site to help us all be more deliberate and informed parents

Contact

For personal notes to Kelly:
Become friends with Kelly on Facebook

For literary rights and inquiries:
Andrea Barzvi
ICM
abarzvi@icmtalent.com
212-556-5657 (p)

For film rights and screenwriting inquiries:
Josie Freedman
ICM
10250 Constellation Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90067
jfreedman@icmtalent.com

For speaking engagements:
Ken Eisenstein
American Program Bureau
313 Washington St.
Newton, MA 02458
617-614-1612
keisenstein@apbspeakers.com