For the Press

Kathi Appelt’s books have won numerous national and state awards, including the Irma and Simon Black Award, Children’s Choice Award, Teacher’s Choice Award, the Oppenheimer Gold Award, Parent’s Choice Award, Storytelling World Award, Growing Good Kids Award, Texas Writer’s League Award for Children’s Literature, the Texas Institute of Letters Award, Best Books for Young Adults, VOYA Top of the Shelf Award, and a host of others.

Her first novel, The Underneath, was a National Book Award Finalist and a Newbery Honor Book.  It also received the Pen USA Award and was a finalist for the Heart of Hawick Children’s Book Award.

In 2009, she was named “Texas Distinguished Writer” by the Friends of the Abilene Public Library.

Her novel, The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp, was a National Book Award Finalist in 2013. In 2016, Maybe a Fox, co-written with Alison McGhee, won the Texas Institute of Letters Award for Middle-Grade Literature, and was named to the Texas Library Association’s “Texas Bluebonnet Master List.”

Her first young adult novel, Angel Thieves, was published in 2019.

Other awards in her lifetime include:

• C.K. Esten Award for outstanding student in Theater Arts, Texas A&M University, 1975.

• Sue German Award for Excellence in Teaching, awarded by the New Jersey Writing Project in Texas, Houston, TX 1997.

• Women Who Make a Difference, Awarded by the Brazos Maternal and Child Health Clinic, Bryan+College Station, TX 2001.

She is married to Ken, a musician, and all-around nice guy. Together they have two grown sons, Jacob and Cooper. Both of them are musicians too. They also share their home with six cats: Jazz, Ace, D’jango, Peach, Mingus, and Chica.

She serves as a faculty member at Vermont College of Fine Arts in their MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults program.