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Amy Stewart biography

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Amy Stewart
Photo: Terrence McNally

Amy Stewart

Amy Stewart Biography

Amy Stewart is the New York Times best-selling author of the Kopp Sisters series, which are based on the true story of one of America's first female deputy sheriffs and her two rambunctious sisters. The books are in development with Elizabeth Banks' production company, Brownstone, for a television series.

Her popular nonfiction titles include The Drunken Botanist, Wicked Plants, and Flower Confidential. While they have not been adapted for television, there are a few bars around the world named after The Drunken Botanist, which is even better.

Her books have sold over a million copies worldwide and have been translated into 17 languages.

She lives in Portland with her husband Scott Brown, a rare book dealer who can usually be found at his shop, Downtown Brown Books.

Amy Stewart's website

This bio was last updated on 01/01/2021. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

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Interview

Amy Stewart discusses her first full length novel Girl Waits With Gun based on the true story of Constance Kopp, one of the country's first female sheriff deputies in 1914 in New Jersey.

How did you discover the story of the Kopp sisters?

While researching The Drunken Botanist, I ran across a story about a man named Henry Kaufman who was arrested for smuggling tainted gin. I thought I should do a little more investigation to see if Henry Kaufman went on to do anything else interesting. That's when I found an article in the New York Times from 1915 about a man named Henry Kaufman who ran his car into a horse-drawn carriage driven by these three sisters, Constance, Norma, and Fleurette Kopp. They got into a conflict over payment for the damages, and it escalated from there. The sisters received kidnapping threats, shots were fired at their house, and they were generally tormented for almost a year. I never did figure out if this Henry Kaufman was the same one who was arrested for gin smuggling, but I kept digging into the story of the Kopp sisters.

Once I compiled a short stack of newspaper clippings, I thought, "Well, surely somebody has written a book about the Kopp sisters. At least a little local history book, or a children's book, or something." I was amazed to find out that nothing had been written about them at all. There was no book, no Wikipedia page—nothing. They'd been completely ...

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Books by this Author

Books by Amy Stewart at BookBrowse
Dear Miss Kopp jacket Kopp Sisters on the March jacket Miss Kopp Just Won't Quit jacket Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Amy Stewart but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Kate Bolick

    Kate Bolick

    Kate Bolick is a contributing editor for The Atlantic, freelance writer for ELLE, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, and host of "Touchstones at The Mount," an annual literary interview series. Previously, she ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Girl Waits with Gun

    Try:
    Spinster
    by Kate Bolick

  • Melanie Crowder

    Melanie Crowder

    Melanie Crowder lives on the Colorado Front Range, where she is a writer and educator. She holds an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is the author of the middle grade novels Parched, A Nearer Moon, and ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Girl Waits with Gun

    Try:
    Audacity
    by Melanie Crowder

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