Amy Hill Hearth

I'm a New York Times bestselling author and a Peabody Award-winning writer whose specialties include oral histories and biographies of women. I have been represented by the William Morris Agency (now William Morris Endeavor) since 1991.

My first novel, MISS DREAMSVILLE AND THE COLLIER COUNTY WOMEN'S LITERARY SOCIETY, will be published by Atria/​Simon & Schuster on October 2, 2012. The novel is set in Florida circa 1962. (Note: the original publication date was November 6. Due to early interest, the publisher has moved up the publication date one month.)

As Contemporary Authors stated in a 2009 overview of my career, my work gained national prominence with the publication of my first book, HAVING OUR SAY: THE DELANY SISTERS' FIRST 100 YEARS, a collaboration with two centenarian sisters who were the daughters of a man born into slavery. The book, published in 1993, was a New York Times Bestseller for 113 weeks. In 1995, it was adapted to the Broadway stage and, in 1999, for an award-winning television film.

Since the publication of HAVING OUR SAY, I have authored or co-authored six more books. I'm also known for my photography. For my 2008 book, 'STRONG MEDICINE' SPEAKS, an oral history of the matriarch of a Lenni-Lenape tribe, I took all of the contemporary photographs, including the one selected for the cover.

Before I became an author, I worked as a journalist. HAVING OUR SAY, in fact, began as a story I wrote about the Delany Sisters for the September 22, 1991 edition of The New York Times. As a journalist who had always been interested in telling the stories of older people, I had been eager to follow up on several leads about this reclusive and little-known pair of centenarian sisters. When I finally did meet them, my dream of an interview almost didn't work out, as I later told The New York Times in a story published on April 2, 1995. "They didn't think they were important enough," I told The Times. "I had to convince them and gave this little impromptu speech - that I thought it was very important that people from their generation be represented, especially black women who hadn't had much opportunity. I guess my enthusiasm rubbed off."

To create the book, we worked closely for 18 months. The book was a runaway bestseller that was published in seven languages and is still a classroom favorite in high schools and colleges across America. Sometimes referred to as an autobiography or memoir, the book is perhaps more accurately categorized as a work of oral history.

In 1995, I was the production advisor on the theatrical adaptation of the book. The adaptation was written by the playwright Emily Mann and opened on Broadway in April 1995. I served the same role - production advisor - in 1999, when the book was adapted for the film. In the film version, the producers Camille O. Cosby and Judith R. James decided to add me as a character, portrayed by the actress Amy Madigan. For my work on the film production, I was among several key persons who received a George Foster Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting.

I first fell in love with writing while a student at the University of Tampa, where I earned a B.A. in Creative Writing/​English in 1982. My first newspaper job was at The Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, Mass., where I was an editor, writer, and critic. Following that, I was a reporter at the Daytona Beach (Fla.) News-Journal. Later, I became an independent journalist. Between 1989 and 1992, I wrote 85 bylined news stories or features for The New York Times.

A list of my credits is as follows:

BOOKS:

Delany, Sarah L. and A. Elizabeth Delany with Amy Hill Hearth. HAVING OUR SAY: THE DELANY SISTERS' FIRST 100 YEARS. New York: Kodansha America, 1993.

Delany, Sarah L. and A. Elizabeth Delany with Amy Hill Hearth. THE DELANY SISTERS BOOK OF EVERYDAY WISDOM. New York: Kodansha America, 1994.

Delany, Sarah L. with Amy Hill Hearth. ON MY OWN AT 107: REFLECTIONS ON LIFE WITHOUT BESSIE. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco/​Harper Collins, 1997. With watercolor illustrations by Brian M. Kotzky.

Hearth, Amy Hill. IN A WORLD GONE MAD: A HEROIC STORY OF LOVE, FAITH, AND SURVIVAL. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001.

Hearth, Amy Hill. THE DELANY SISTERS REACH HIGH. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2004. Childrens biography of the Delany Sisters, with illustrations by Tim Ladwig.

Hearth, Amy Hill. 'STRONG MEDICINE' SPEAKS: A NATIVE AMERICAN ELDER HAS HER SAY: AN ORAL HISTORY. New York: Atria/​Simon & Schuster, 2008.

Pelosi, Nancy with Amy Hill Hearth. KNOW YOUR POWER: A MESSAGE TO AMERICA'S DAUGHTERS. New York: Doubleday, 2008.

BROADWAY CREDIT:

Hearth, Amy Hill. Production advisor, theatrical adaptation of Having Our Say, 1995.

FILM CREDIT:

Hearth, Amy Hill. Production advisor, telefilm adaptation of Having Our Say, 1999.

MAGAZINE, NEWSPAPER CREDITS include:

The New York Times: 85 bylined stories from January 22, 1989 to June 14, 1992.

"Bessie and Sadie: the Delany Sisters Relive a Century," Smithsonian magazine, October 1993.

American Heritage article on the Delany Sisters, October 1993.

"You Can Fool Mother Nature," essay, Publisher's Weekly magazine, Dec. 12, 2011.

LITERARY MAGAZINE:

"Searching for Abraham," Tampa Review, Volume 23; 2002.

WEB CREDITS include:

"Having Their Say: Strong Voices from the Marginalized Majority," NWSAction, the online magazine of the National Women's Studies Association, Fall 2007.

"You Only Need One," ASJA Monthly, newsletter of the American Society of Journalists & Authors, January 2003.

"'Strong Medicine' Speaks," Smithsonian.com, January 2008.