Josephine Humphreys (born February 2, 1945) is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

novelist.

Early life

Josephine Humphreys grew up in

Charleston, South Carolina Charleston is the largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina, the county seat of Charleston County, and the principal city in the Charleston–North Charleston metropolitan area. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint o ...

with her mother, father and two sisters (Vinh). Her father worked as the director of the Charleston development board. Her mother worked for the Charleston Museum (Josephine Humphreys full-length interview for Envision SC). Humphreys was encouraged to write by her grandmother Neta, and later by her mother. All the books she read were inherited from her grandparents or came from the public library (Vinh). The all-girl school she attended had an excellent writing program and a literary magazine, according to Humphreys. After graduating from high school, she attended

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

because her father believed it was a "southern college" and he was against her attending any "northern school." What her father did not realize, though, was that Duke was anything but the "southern school" he imagined (Josephine Humphreys full-length interview for Envision SC). Her class was the first racially integrated undergraduate class. For four years this didn't seem to be an issue, until their graduation day, when there was a bomb threat from the

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...

, resulting in Humphreys' class canceling its graduation ceremony.

Career

A native of Charleston, South Carolina, which is also the setting of her novels ''Dreams of Sleep'', ''Rich in Love'' and ''The Fireman's Fair'', Humphreys was educated at Ashley Hall (Class of 1963), studied

creative writing Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary ...

with

Reynolds Price Edward Reynolds Price (February 1, 1933 – January 20, 2011) was an American poet, novelist, dramatist, essayist and James B. Duke Professor of English at Duke University. Apart from English literature, Price had a lifelong interest in Biblical ...

(A.B., 1967), and went on to attend

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

(M.A., 1968) and the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

. She held fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation and the Danforth Foundation. From 1970 to 1977, before beginning her writing career, she taught English in Charleston. While her first three novels are mainly about contemporary family life in the

South South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...

, her fourth, ''Nowhere Else on Earth'', is a departure in that it is an

historical novel Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting related to the past events, but is fictional. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for historical fiction literature, it can also be applied to other ty ...

based on the true story of Rhoda Strong and

Henry Berry Lowrie Henry Berry Lowry ( – unknown after 1872) was an American outlaw. A Lumbee Native American, he led the Lowry Gang in North Carolina during and after the American Civil War. Many local North Carolinians remember him as a Robin Hood figure. Lowry ...

from the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

era. It won the Southern Book Award in 2001. ''Rich in Love'', probably her best-known novel, was made into a 1992 film of the same title directed by

Bruce Beresford Bruce Beresford (; born 16 August 1940) is an Australian film director who has made more than 30 feature films over a 50-year career, both locally and internationally in the United States. Beresford's notable films he has directed include ''Br ...

, from a

screenplay ''ScreenPlay'' is a television drama anthology series broadcast on BBC2 between 9 July 1986 and 27 October 1993. Background After single-play anthology series went off the air, the BBC introduced several showcases for made-for-television, fe ...

Alfred Uhry Alfred Fox Uhry (born December 3, 1936) is an American playwright and screenwriter. He has received an Academy Award, two Tony Awards and the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for dramatic writing for ''Driving Miss Daisy''. He is a member of the Fellowship of ...

, starring

Albert Finney Albert Finney (9 May 1936 – 7 February 2019) was an English actor. He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and worked in the theatre before attaining prominence on screen in the early 1960s, debuting with '' The Entertainer'' (1960) ...

and

Jill Clayburgh Jill Clayburgh (April 30, 1944 – November 5, 2010) was an American actress known for her work in theater, television, and cinema. She received the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Act ...

. Humphreys was the winner of the 1984

Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award The PEN/Hemingway Award is awarded annually to a full-length novel or book of short stories by an American author who has not previously published a full-length book of fiction. The award is named after Ernest Hemingway and funded by the Hemingway ...

for ''Dreams of Sleep'', and the recipient of a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

, the Lyndhurst Prize, and the

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...

Award in Literature.

Novel Inspiration

Many of Humphreys' novels have been inspired not only by the landscape of Charleston but also from her own life. Many of her characters represent a personal metaphor(Vinh). Most books represent a form of family and community because that was important to Humphreys. Most importantly they reflect Charleston and how its changed from when she was a child to now. One book in particular, Fireman's Fair was rewritten in three months because of the hurricane and its significant impact on the landscape(Magee).

Novels

*'' Dreams of Sleep'' (1984) *'' Rich in Love'' (1987) *'' The Fireman's Fair'' (1991) *'' Nowhere Else on Earth'' (2000)

References

Josephine Humphreys Full Length Interview for Envision SC. 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr7rF3qsdcQ. Magee, Rosemary M. “Continuity and Separation: An Interview with Josephine Humphreys.” The Southern Review, vol. 27, no. 4, 1991 Autumn 1991, pp. 792–802. mzh. Vinh, Alphonse. “Talking with Josephine Humphreys.” The Southern Quarterly: A Journal of the Arts in the South, vol. 32, no. 4, 1994 Summer 1994, pp. 131–40. mzh. {{DEFAULTSORT:Humphreys, Josephine 20th-century American novelists Writers from Charleston, South Carolina Angier B. Duke Scholars Duke University alumni Yale University alumni 1945 births Living people Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award winners American women novelists 20th-century American women writers Writers of American Southern literature Novelists from South Carolina 21st-century American women

Early life

Career

Novel Inspiration

Novels

See also

References