Kathy Hepinstall biography

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

Kathy Hepinstall

Kathy Hepinstall

How to pronounce Kathy Hepinstall: HEP-in-stall (rhymes with pep)

Kathy Hepinstall Biography

Kathy Hepinstall was born in Odessa, Texas and was raised mostly in Spring, Texas, two hours from the Louisiana border, where most of her relatives still reside. She lives in Austin, Texas. Her first novel, The House of Gentle Men was published in 2000 and her second, The Absence of Nectar, was published in 2001. The House of Gentle Men was a finalist in the Penn Faulkner awards West and was featured on the LA Times Bestseller list. Her third novel, Prince of Lost Places, was published in 2003.

Hepinstall has also worked in advertising, both freelancing and working for several agencies in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Kathy Hepinstall's website

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Interview

Kathy Hepinstall writes about her childhood, which provided the inspiration for The House of Gentlemen, and her love of Louisiana and the south.

Life is That Big

I lived in Texas and Oklahoma until I was about six years old. Then my father moved us to New Jersey. My Texas accent never recovered from the two years I spent there. The rest of my childhood I lived in Spring Texas, a couple hours from the Louisiana border.

After I received my bachelor's degree from The University of Texas in Austin, Texas, I moved to Houston to try to join the creative writing master's program at The University of Houston. Being declared "marginal," I never got into the program. Instead, I took the literature route and received my master's degree two and a half years later.

I then moved to Los Angeles and entered the world of advertising - doing work for Coca-Cola, Nike, Ortho Weed Killer, and just about any other product you can name. Then three or four years ago, I moved to Austin, Texas and began writing seriously. Much of the time I drew heavily on my relatives from Louisiana.

Every year the relatives get together in Louisiana and clean out the family graveyard. Last year we had our first official graveyard softball game because we liked the sound of it. Currently I'm working on a book set in a graveyard because the subject fascinates me. Our family cemetery is very ...

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Books by this Author

Books by Kathy Hepinstall at BookBrowse
The Book of Polly jacket Blue Asylum jacket The House of Gentle Men jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Kathy Hepinstall 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

  • Chris Adrian

    Chris Adrian

    Chris Adrian was born in Washington, D.C. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he received his MD from East Virginia Medical School. "Every Night for a Thousand Years", the New Yorker story from which this ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Blue Asylum

    Try:
    Gob's Grief
    by Chris Adrian

  • Serena Burdick

    Serena Burdick

    Serena Burdick is the author of the novels Girl In The Afternoon and The Girls With No Names. She is the 2017 International Book Award Winner for Historical Fiction. She studied creative writing at Sarah Lawrence, holds a ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Blue Asylum

    Try:
    The Girls with No Names
    by Serena Burdick

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