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This author appeared at the 2009 festival. Please view the list of authors appearing at this year's festival or see our suggestions for similar authors below.
 Jacqueline Kelly
Few eleven-year-old girls develop a passion for studying and describing what may be a new species of the hairy vetch plant, but Calpurnia Virginia Tate, a budding naturalist at the turn of the 20th century, prefers to spend her afternoons doing just that. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate is the story of Callie Vee's struggle to find her place in the world. After forming a new bond with her enigmatic grandfather, the two embark on daily excursions to explore and document their natural surroundings. It isn't long before Callie Vee has spurred all interest in learning the science of "housewifery" and begun capturing caterpillars and writing letters of scientific inquiry to the Smithsonian Institution. Her mother, however, is unmoved by her daughter's new passion and insists that Callie Vee's precious time spent with her scientific notebook be spent instead on piano lessons and sock sewing. Kelly begins each chapter with epigraphs from Darwin's Origin of the Species, which has been outlawed by Callie Vee's small town; Kelly adds metaphors linking the points at which Callie Vee's journey to self-discovery and the scientific tome's assertions intersect. "Kelly's rich images and setting, believable relationships and a touch of magic take this story far," Publishers Weekly writes. Kelly practiced both medicine and law before devoting time to her true passion of writing fiction. She attended college in El Paso and now lives in Fentress and Austin. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate is her debut novel; she’s currently writing a sequel to The Wind in the Willows.
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