Judith Guest

Guest graduated from the University of Michigan in 1958 and became a grade-school teacher shortly thereafter. Though she has been writing since the age of eleven, Guest claims to have completed very few pieces until she entered a short story-writing contest in 1970. Shortly thereafter she stepped away from teaching to "concentrate on finishing something"; the result was Ordinary People, a short story that eventually grew into her first novel after three years of work. Published in 1976, the novel was awarded the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize the same year. Guest has since written five more novels in addition to several short stories and non-fiction pieces. She currently lives in the Twin Cities region of Minnesota.