General Bio:
J.H. Diehl's novel Tiny Infinities is a Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book of the Year, a Junior Library Guild Selection, and a Mighty Girl Book of the Year. Her picture books include Loon Chase, illustrated by Kathryn Freeman, and Three Little Beavers, illustrated by Cathy Morrison. Her short fiction has appeared in Indiana Review, Sycamore Review, Enhanced Gravity, Kestrel, and Bethesda Magazine, among others. She is the recipient of a Michener Fellowship, a Maryland Individual Artist Award, and was a finalist for an SCWBI Grant for a Contemporary Novel.
​Jean Heilprin Diehl was born in Washington, D.C. and raised in the nearby suburbs, the setting for some of her fiction. After graduating from Yale with a degree in English she worked as a reporter for the Concord Monitor in Concord, N.H. writing features and covering small towns and the cops and courts beat. While in Concord she also volunteered at NHPR as host of The Folk Show. She worked as a radio stringer in Buenos Aires before attending the Iowa Writers Workshop for an MFA in Fiction. From Iowa City, Jean returned abroad for seven year to live in Warsaw and Jerusalem while her husband Jackson Diehl was a foreign correspondent. She has taught fiction writing, literature and composition at the University of Iowa, Hebrew University and Montgomery College, in high schools and elementary schools, and served as an SCBWI Creative Coaching Mentor. Jean has also worked as an education writer creating literacy materials and leveled readers. She and Jackson have two children and currently live in Maryland and New Hampshire.
​
​
​
For Gr2-8 Author Visits:
​
J.H. (Jean) Diehl was born in Washington, DC and grew up in Maryland. She learned to read and write in first grade, and was lucky that her teacher, Ms. Van Pool, was left-handed, too. Little Falls Public Library was her second most favorite place. Her favorite place was her bed in her room at home where she read all the books she borrowed from the library. In sixth grade Jean knew she wanted to be a writer. That's when she 'published' her first book, a collection of poems she titled “Poems About Nothing In Particular But Something." Although there were only three copies, seeing her typed words gave her a powerful feeling, because it was her voice speaking on the page, and nobody could change what she said since there her words were - printed.
Jean has been writing ever since. She’s been a newspaper reporter, a creator of materials that help kids learn to read, an English teacher, and a writing teacher. She’s lived in four states, Maryland, Iowa, Connecticut and New Hampshire, and five countries, the U.S., United Kingdom, Argentina, Poland, and Israel.
Her novel TINY INFINITIES was a Bank Street Best Book of the Year, Junior Library Guild Selection, and Mighty Girl Best Book of the Year. She is also the author of two picture books, LOON CHASE and THREE LITTLE BEAVERS. Jean and her husband have a son and a daughter and live with their rescue dog, Wilson, part of the year in New Hampshire and the rest of the time in Maryland, about ten minutes from the house where she read all those books as a kid. Jean is always looking for more great reads. She hopes you’ll recommend a few of your favorites!
​
​