AUTHOR BIO

A newspaper story about a girl who was the sole survivor of a family tragedy was the inspiration for Heidi Durrow’s THE GIRL WHO FELL FROM THE SKY, a first novel that won Barbara Kingsolver’s Bellwether Prize for Literature of Social Change. The book received rave reviews, was on numerous “Best of the Year” lists for 2010, and was a New York Times bestseller in both hardcover and paperback; it now has over 170,000 copies in print. Heidi is also the cohost of the award-winning weekly podcast Mixed Chicks Chat and the cofounder and coproducer of the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival in Los Angeles, an annual free public event that celebrates multiracial stories.

Heidi was haunted by the story of the little girl who lost her family and decided to imagine a life for her in the aftermath of this tragedy, giving her a voice and writing a future for her. “Since I didn’t know anything about the girl, I filled in what I did know from my experience,” Heidi says, “so Rachel, like me, is half African American and half Danish.” In THE GIRL WHO FELL FROM THE SKY she finally found a way to write about the issues that galvanize her: biracial and bicultural identity, racial and class borders, mothering and womanhood. “The Girl Who Fell from the Sky can actually fly,” wrote the New York Times. “Its energy comes from its vividly realized characters . . . Durrow has a terrific ear for dialogue, an ability to summon a wealth of hopes and fears in a single line.” The novel is already a book club favorite and a community reads choice.

Speaking Topics

- The Girl Who Fell from the Sky: Blending Real Life and Personal History into Fiction
- What Are You? The Language of Biracial Identity and Multiculturalism
- Finding a Voice, Telling a Story: The Creative Life

Meet Heidi W. Durrow

- The New York Times on Multicultural Writers
- NPR's All Things Considered Interview with Michele Norris
- Q&A
- The New Yorker on Heidi Durrow's Mixed Chicks
- CNN Red Chair Interview